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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!
Leave the Ark, Safrin had said. Think about what it's like to be that far away from her.
Well Jack fucking is now.
He'd left his ship and her crew hovering somewhere on the borders of the Feverlands, cutting through the swamp and into the Oerwoud on foot from there. It's easily been a day since then and, in all honesty, the Captain had been quite enjoying himself in the silence of the jungle, senses only alert for the sort of danger that has fangs and claws, rather than anything with a cunning mind like his own.
The Undergrove was always his destination - Jack has a few things worth dropping off down here for the types of people who might both find them useful and would know where to look for them - but that's where it had all started to go wrong. The downpour had begun that morning, steady and heavy and making the air feel like something solid he has to fight to breathe against, and with it came the mud.
Already having had quite enough of the stuff in both King's End and the Grounds, maybe that's what makes Jack less patient than usual in his footsteps, because when he slips and takes a tumble into the knotted web of roots and luminescent plantlife, he goes down hard. Hard enough that it's only when he comes to that he realises he's knocked himself the fuck out, tasting blood and able to feel it too, sticky and warm where it coats the side of his face.
Grunting a curse and levering himself up onto his elbows, the good Captain finds himself covered in mud and, having lost concentrating on the magic keeping him dry as he walked, soaking wet as well. And yeah - he's definitely thinking about the comfort of his ship right now, thanks very much. Particularly the warm, dry cabin part.
For quest req:
4. Leave the Ark an entire board away, considering what it's like to be that far from her.
The Undergrove is a fascinating place to explore - or at least it will be, once Lyra stops jumping at shadows.
Massive roots twine up from the ground, arching overhead in a display that can only be described as a marvel. It's nature and architecture woven into one, and though Lyra only has a working knowledge of the former, she can still appreciate the beauty of the latter. Although it's dark and damp, that doesn't bother her; if anything, the luminescent flora that make this place home create an almost ethereal atmosphere. The only dampers on her spirits are one: the mud and two: her lack of knowledge about the area.
A section of fungi that look almost like a warped form of grass shake; Lyra halts, heart hammering, until a blink hare emerges. Spotting her, it darts away, leaving her to roll her eyes at her own ridiculous fears. It's not as though she didn't do her homework. She knows what to expect of the Oerwoud and its various locales. But perhaps she did her research a bit too well, for now she knows what could lurk behind each reaching root.
A grunt-like noise sounds from nearby, making Lyra jump; then a muttered curse has her frowning. She rounds a root column to find a man laying in the mud, propped up on his elbows, soaking wet and covered in blood. Her eyes widen for a split second before her training kicks in. She glances around quickly and, seeing no immediate and obvious threat, hurries towards the stranger. "Excuse me, sir?" she says, her tone polite but concerned. Then, knowing it was an absurd question but having no kinder way to say hey, did you know you're covered in blood? she adds a hesitant, "Are you alright?"
The pounding in his head paired with the confusion of having just been unconscious makes Jack, er, not so sharp as he normally is, such that he only realises he has company when a voice rings out overhead. Startling immediately, he glares up towards the stranger with ice already spearing from the ground around him like a jagged, protective wall, reaching up with a hand to swipe rain and blood out of his eyes.
Sir? is his immediate reaction when he realises she's not either the Oerwoud come to attack him or anyone else come to attack him, the Captain scoffing and gingerly touching the cut above his eyebrow. "Call me Jack," he grunts. "An' I reckon so. Must've slipped." And he's got words for the jungle about that, none of them good. "I'll be a'right."
Apparently, his name is Jack. Taking the hint, Lyra takes a single step closer, doing her best to appear as nonthreatening as possible. "Alright, Jack. I'm Lyra." She scans him, head to toe, noting the way he remains prone and in the mud. "Do you mind if I come a little closer?" she asks, polite and professional. He's lucid and talking, and he knows his name - all good signs that there won't be any lasting damage.
Still, even though Lyra knows that head wounds bleed like a bitch, she can't help but worry that there's something else hurt that she can't see. "It looks like you may have cut yourself. I can help, if that's okay." She hopes he'll accept the assistance. She isn't keen to pester him until he lets her help, but she will if that's what it takes. Gods know she's not one to leave someone out here in this condition.
"A pleasure," Jack mutters, voice stripped of its usual roguish charm or even its sharp bitterness; the Captain just sounds tired right now, letting the jagged ring of ice die down around him now that he can't sense any immediate threat from the stranger - Lyra, he should say. "It's a free region," he says in response to her question about coming closer, Jack managing to sit himself up a little more even if it makes his head throb in time with his pulse.
"You reckon? What gave it away?" Lyra might not know this about him, but his sarcasm is also a good indication that he's going to be just fine, Jack gazing down at the fingers he'd used to touch the cut above his eye - fingers currently stained red. "So long as you ain't a mage, sure," he mumbles. He doesn't much like regular doctors either, but healing magic is a big no in his book.
Lyra doesn't have to know Jack well to recognize sarcasm. She's done enough search and rescue work to know that some people get mean when they're injured, or even when they're just embarrassed. She takes it in, then allows it to slide off, unbothered as she steps closer, crouching in the mud beside the man. "Not a mage," she assures him, slipping her pack from her shoulders. "I do have a healing ring, which would make this easier, but if you're opposed, I can do this the old-fashioned way."
When he's made his preference clear, Lyra gets to work, pulling a clean rag and some purified water from her pack. Alcohol is better, but it also hurts like a bitch, so Lyra likes to start with water so she can see what she's working with. "I'll just clean you up a bit," she explains. "Then I can see if you need stitches. That work for you?" She raises her brows, waiting for approval before she starts to do anything.
"Old fashioned way's never steered me wrong a'fore," Jack mutters; he's still a little suspicious as Lyra comes crouching beside him, all steel and vitriol at being too concussed dizzy, still, to get to his feet and be on his way under his own steam. But her thoughts are calm and focused purely on the task at hand, and so the Captain lets out a long breath in a sigh and allows her to rummage around in her pack.
If Safrin had wanted him to consider what it was like to be without his ship, she couldn't have picked a better situation for him. Swamped out here in the rain and the mud with a sore head and no one around but a stranger to have to rely upon, he misses the Ark like he's missing an arm. "Fingers crossed for no stitches. Ain't sure I'm keen for someone to practice their sewin' on me in the middle of the jungle," he grumbles, sitting himself up a little more and nodding for her to go ahead.
Lyra rummages around in her pack, pulling out a canteen of clean water and a rag. Dampening the fabric, she reaches out to begin gently dabbing at the blood. It comes away easily enough, for the most part, revealing a cut that Lyra suspects could use stitches, but that she might be able to get away with taping instead - at least until Jack can get back to civilization, where some healer he trusts might be able to finish the job.
"I'm an excellent seamstress," Lyra says, trying for levity as she finishes cleaning the wound. In truth, she's passable - on people, her job is to get them stable enough for transportation back to a real healer (hence her healing ring), and on clothes, she can mend rips and hem pants, but that's about as far as her skillset goes. "No practice necessary, though. I think I can patch you up with these." And she pulls out a set of butterfly bandages, selecting a couple of the right size. "You might want to see someone when you get back to civilization, though - I don't have anything to sterilize the wound out here, and you don't want it infected."
The clean water feels irrelevant given the downpour, but Jack isn't going to complain if Lyra wants to waste some from her canteen. He'd have also pointed out that he could create water if she wanted some that badly, only he doubts he's in any state to actually do so right now, and also now she's dabbing at the cut on his face and he's wincing and gritting his teeth about it. Not much use for conversation, unfortunately.
"Bully for you," he mutters at her sewing ability, his attention understandably being on the cut she's poking and prodding and examining. Still, as she produces the bandages he settles a bit - that's enough for now, Jack thinks, and he's had quite enough of an experience thinking about not being on his ship to go and find it again, thank you very much.
"Sure, I'll get patched up," he mutters - that means, in fact, that he'll have his first mate Murphy squint at it and call it good. "You often heal strangers out in the middle of nowhere?"
Okay, so maybe the clean water isn't particularly useful, given the downpour, but the combination of water and gentle prodding manages to wash away the worst of the blood. She ignores the muttered commentary as she focuses on the task at hand, carefully aligning the torn skin and applying the bandages. When she's done, she sits back and looks over her handiwork. It's not perfect (it's hard to apply sticky bandages to wet skin), but it'll do for now.
She has no choice but to take Jack at his word that he'll get the wound taken care of, but she looks at him dubiously all the same. She's met his type before, and she wouldn't be surprised in the least if he's just saying that to get her to leave him alone. In any case, she elects to simply answer his question. "Actually, yeah," she says, snorting a soft laugh. "I work in search and rescue, so..."
"Oh? I s'pose I shouldn't be surprised that you managed to search an' rescue me, then," Jack mutters, blinking a few times as Lyra sits back at last, as if to let his mind and body recalibrate to this new state of pain now that he's had a chance to come around a bit. "Far be it for me to stop your searchin', though." Already grabbing for a low-hanging branch to lever himself to his feet, Jack gets himself upright without passing out or throwing up, which he takes as a win.
Waiting until he's certain he can hold himself under his own muster, the Captain rolls his shoulders and peers out into the downpour back in the direction he'd been walking. "I'll leave you to your rescues an' be on my way." His tone brokers no room for argument, whether Lyra has one or not, Jack already picking his way out of the undergrowth and back onto the Oerwoud trail.
"...Thanks," he adds belatedly, glancing over his shoulder at her, before the jungle swallows him up once more.
