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Character of the Season
Once known as the Butcher of Whitebrim, he's now The Butcher of Dygra, stepping forward as the first created demigod of the Ancients. There is no question that Astaroth casts an intimidating silhouette. Tall, domineering and dangerous, if looks could kill you'd be dead already, but to get up close and personal with the Grounds' resident cannibal tells a much different story. Dripping with charm and clad in only the finest attire, Asta is a gentleman monster, as polite as they come and committed to his role as security for the Dusklight and those who have earned his loyalty. Be careful of that smile, though - those teeth are sharp.
Congratulations, Asta!
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!
I roll the dice and I hold my breath I'll give you all that I have left So hold me now before my luck runs out I think you're close but I have my doubts
With letters dispatched and seeds secured in a pouch for later, Colt tackles the newest day with no delay for Rae's trials. Especially since in short order he'll be heading back to King's End, so she wants the work to be able to proceed unhindered even in her absence.
She stands at the edge of their tent city, gaze pinching into the thick, dangerous jungle that she's declaring their future home. It's hung heavy in shadow, the sun still climbing up the sky, but it's the best shot at a full day they'll get. Her wig-hair is braided into pigtails that rest over her shoulders, because while it's not hot yet, she knows the leftover chill of the evening is only a feint for the afternoon's severity. Her gaze drops back to the pack of supplies she's stuffing an extra skin of water into, alongside some provisions and fire-starting supplies, a challenge given the wetness of the jungle. Beneath the pack, a bedroll is secured, thicker than one might think is needed for a desert, but the nights are cold this time of year, enough so that it feels like Deepfrost has returned.
Shifting it onto her back, along with her quiver and arrows, Colt nods. "Alright, Noe. Ready?" She glances to the side at the engineer, holding her gaze for a moment before picking up a knife and a notebook. "A smaller scouting operation like this will ensure we can cover the most ground quickly and have the least impact on the natural flow of the area. Remember, we're observing the flora and the fauna to ensure we don't cause undue disruption. I expect the Teih Maa will be out of the question, so let's start with the outskirts that border the abrupt change to the Furance."
RQ requirement: A thread of at least 2 Hakians surveying the Suvahasi to find out where the addition of a new species will have the least impact
You've got me in this trance And I need your hand to win If I have to leave this up to chance You're a gamble and I'm all in
Received a Gilded Market wig from Remi that resembles her usual hair and is enchanted to stay on better than most wigs | has a reverse centaur tattoo on her left hand with the legs going down her pointer and middle fingers that looks like this.
When Noe had received an invitation to join Colt on this scouting expedition, she'd leapt at the opportunity. It was a far cry from her usual area of expertise, it was true, but surveying the area would give her a wonderful idea of the landscape she'd be working with, which could only serve her well when it came to designing buildings and town layouts and such. She'd met Colt this morning with her own pack of supplies, complete with a thick bedroll, first aid supplies, fresh water, non-perishable food, and a few other items she'd thought might be helpful.
"You got it, boss," she chirped as Colt gave instructions, shooting a smile towards the marshal. "Get in and out quick, without leaving a mark." Noe tugged a map out of her pack, unfolding it and shifting closer to Colt so that the Sharpshot could view it with her should she choose. "I figure we can try and mark areas to avoid or areas to consider on this." She was no cartographer, but it was better than nothing.
The taste of your lips is my idea of luxury
Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Noe.
I roll the dice and I hold my breath I'll give you all that I have left So hold me now before my luck runs out I think you're close but I have my doubts
Noe's bright energy is a welcome one, and Colt can't help but soften at the edges a bit as the engineer takes it all in stride with a willingness like a sponge to water. She isn't afraid to admit what she doesn't know, but she's just as willing to go out on a limb and give it shot, if that's what'd be best in place of finding someone who does know.
"I bet you and Wren would get along," she tells her as an idle aside, thinking of the young, displaced girl with a certain fondness. "Have you met yet?" They're very different people, but their spirits both burn with a certain tenacity that suggests a likeness, as it does in everyone who has come here to settle, she notes.
Nodding as Noe summarizes it cleanly and offers her own idea, Colt leans in to look at the offered map. "That's smart," she agrees, "and I have some colored fabric we can stake in the ground or tie off on areas to visibly mark our determined place. Just for those with less skill reading maps to the finer detail." She has found in past construction projects things that read perfect on paper don't always translate so neatly to the actual world.
"Alright, let's head out," she calls, turning to hike with Noe into the Suvahasi, keeping to the thinner edges and walking north in the arc of it. "I'm sure Kaisel filled you in on that...thing we fought up here, yeah? I'm definitely hoping we don't run into anything more like that living around here. I'm more worried about preserving the dream cacti." She considers for a moment, then sighs. "And I guess the tangleweeds and preying orchids are important to consider. Has to be a healthy balance, and we definitely don't want to settle anywhere near where they congregate."
You've got me in this trance And I need your hand to win If I have to leave this up to chance You're a gamble and I'm all in
Received a Gilded Market wig from Remi that resembles her usual hair and is enchanted to stay on better than most wigs | has a reverse centaur tattoo on her left hand with the legs going down her pointer and middle fingers that looks like this.
As Noe approached and Colt commented on someone named Wren, the engineer tilted her head thoughtfully to one side. "I don't think so. Not yet, anyway." She was certain they would, though, in time - it was a small region, made smaller by the scant space they could inhabit. If she hadn't run into someone by now, it was only a matter of time.
Tucking her map into an easily accessible pocket of her bag, Noe hoisted the pack into place on her back and nodded, falling into step beside Colt as they entered the edge of the jungle. In places, she fell back to allow the marshal to take the lead, but all in all she tried to stay alongside to make conversation easier. "Yeah, I heard about that," she said, frowning slightly. "I've never heard of such. D'you think it was, like, a one-time thing?" If there was a touch of nerves in her voice, she hoped it didn't show - she just wasn't prepared for a dangerous encounter, not yet. Not without the throwing stars she was working on procuring.
In any case, she pondered the question of the flora and fauna native to the area. "I bet it's important to keep them all in balance, like you said. I mean, I'm not an expert, but doesn't everything have its role to play? Even if you're mostly worried about the dream cacti, who's to say that letting the tangleweeds and preying orchids die off or whatever wouldn't negatively impact the cacti in the long run?"
The taste of your lips is my idea of luxury
Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Noe.
bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones.
You've encountered the OG random event! This allows you to skip one levelling requirement with the character in this thread. (Unfortunately does not count for characters over level 10, how sad.)
I roll the dice and I hold my breath I'll give you all that I have left So hold me now before my luck runs out I think you're close but I have my doubts
Colt has never found fear to be a regrettable thing. It keeps you alive, more often than not, sharpening you to the world and protecting you, so long as you know how to carry it alongside you rather than get swept beneath it and consumed. Generally, Colt can manage it just fine, and though she hears it add a waver to Noe's voice, she rather thinks the engineer can too from all she's seen, and how the woman keeps walking with her now. There might come a time when Noe starts slipping under, and Colt hopes she'll find the strength to tread against that tide, or that she'll be in arm's reach to grab hold of her and help her out of it. She knows what that sinking feels like too, because she has only learned to carry her fear in certain settings. Others, she's still doing her best not to drown.
"Don't know," she admits, ducking beneath a wet bough and the vines that trail from it. She points to the bright flowers higher up, the color a warning sign—the toxic ones, and this time of year, burdened with pollen. "Careful," Colt interjects, preferring to be overly cautious than assume Noe knows what to look out for. Colt has begun to travel this jungle often enough to grow more and more familiar, which brings a risk of complacency that she tries to fight off with continued wariness of the ramplant dangers. "I reckon there's much life waiting to be discovered still in this region. Not sure anyone's ever done a thorough cataloguing, given how inhospitable it's been. Makes the risk of knowledge and adventure not worth it to most, or takes the ultimate price from those who'd been willing." She continues the thought about the strange nightmare they'd seen, pausing to cock her head as a sound calls out from deeper within the Suvahasi.
"Hmm...almost sounds like a Shangyang's cry." She muses for a moment, ticking back and forth through her knowledge, its depths growing with every passing season spent here. Still, it's not enough, and she can't be sure. "Mark on the map for here that one might be around. We definitely don't want to intrude on their territory." The birds are useful, despite the poor omens, and she expects they hunt enough of the smaller nuisances to be worth keeping around for that reason too. She'd like to stay near one, if possible, but not enough to disturb its nesting or roosting areas.
A blue strip of fabric is tied to one of the branches before she moves on, stepping around a fallen and rotting pile of plants. "Exactly," she agrees to Noe's understanding of their situation. "Rae made a point to say we should evolve to exist with this region, especially if it's designed to keep things out. That means we can't just ruin things as we like simply because it suits us. We have to find the pocket we can fit into and fill in the balance here." She shrugs a little. "Some things will get upset. It'll have a ripple. Ripples happen all the time with or without us though." A lifetime spent managing the land her herds grazed on, letting the ground rest and recover, keeping the wild things out and her stock in, and putting up with a certain amount of losses with that process, it's equipped her to understand the push and the pull of living wild. "Not to say we can't protect ourselves, or ensure we have what we need, but we shouldn't be greedy or unnecessarily cruel. Everything exists to fill a role." Nature is actually adept at avoiding waste, and to some extent, whatever can't learn to coexist with them either will have to adapt, because they're here to stay.
You've got me in this trance And I need your hand to win If I have to leave this up to chance You're a gamble and I'm all in
Received a Gilded Market wig from Remi that resembles her usual hair and is enchanted to stay on better than most wigs | has a reverse centaur tattoo on her left hand with the legs going down her pointer and middle fingers that looks like this.
The desert was, of course, one of the less habitable regions of Caido, and given that, Noe was unsurprised to hear Colt’s assessment. A thorough catalogue of the flora and fauna here would be invaluable, though the scope of such a project would be challenging. How would one know when they were finished, if no one knew how much existed in the first place? ”Fair,” she said, sidestepping a particularly bright, suspicious-looking flower. ”I wonder if anyone here would be interested in that kind of project? It would be super helpful to start keeping track of what we find.” Not her area of expertise, of course, but someone, somewhere would likely jump at that kind of project.
For now, though, Noe paused as a strange call sounded from the jungle, marking the spot on the map as best she could determine it and labeling it appropriately. ”Do we know anything about how much space it needs?” Noe asked, wondering if she should mark a rough circle around this spot. ”I wonder if the Celestine caretaker could help with some of this stuff, at least in giving us information.”
Continuing on, Noe listened as Colt agreed with her assessment, and felt no small amount of pride for having grasped their situation. ”Maybe we could relocate some of the animals or plants that we displace,” she suggested. ”As far as that’s possible, anyway. I know some things will inevitably be removed or killed off, but we should try and save what we can. Who knows, it may benefit us in the long run.” After all, wasn’t there some fable about a lion and a mouse that showed the benefits of helping everything, no matter what?
The taste of your lips is my idea of luxury
Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Noe.
I roll the dice and I hold my breath I'll give you all that I have left So hold me now before my luck runs out I think you're close but I have my doubts
Colt hums a thought of consideration into the jungle as they continue on. "There's no shortage of projects here for people to take, or come fill." That is to say, she might not fully spare someone to go do such extensive fieldwork when they had the important need of their town looming. The more they could improve, too, the more people would be willing and able to come.
Noe's suggestion of relying on the Celestine Caretaker is a good one, and Colt's glance is bright as she turns it back towards Noe over her shoulder as she dodges another toxic flower. "I'm sure he would be useful to ask, because no, I've no idea what they need," she admits, and figuring of anyone, Grimm would. "Maybe he'd know about relocating too," she considers, more hesitant with that idea. "Although in my experience, best not to change up something's territory. Causes its own set of problems." Animals might seem like they have full command of the wirld, but like anything, they build routine and familiarity out of their day to day, and being taken away and plopped down elsewhere can often end in miserably bad results.
"The mouse pulling the thron out of the lion's paw?" Colt wonders, brow kicking up. "Here I always thought that was about how small, annoying things can bother the mighty still." She pauses again as the next stretch of forest they get to takes on a stranger quality than any of the others. She crouches down, fingers sliding against the yellowed and drooping vines. "Look here," she encourages Noe. "This looks like some kind of fungus, or rot, affecting almost all the plants here." The animals too, they'd come to find, an unusual silence remaining here.
You've got me in this trance And I need your hand to win If I have to leave this up to chance You're a gamble and I'm all in
Received a Gilded Market wig from Remi that resembles her usual hair and is enchanted to stay on better than most wigs | has a reverse centaur tattoo on her left hand with the legs going down her pointer and middle fingers that looks like this.
Noe stepped around some brightly-colored flowers and stumbled over a root, nearly teetering into the very flora she’d sought to avoid. As she regained her footing, she glanced at the flowers with trepidation, moving quickly on as though to avoid lingering near something that may or may not prove to be dangerous.
”Yeah, maybe not relocating,” she agreed as she moved on, keeping an eye on their surroundings and marking a spot with a particularly bright array of color on the map. ”But if we knew about how much territory they need, maybe we could avoid disturbing them too much. Have we thought about building with the jungle?” she added then, tapping her pencil against her lip thoughtfully. ”Like, you know how in the Greatwood everything’s built into trees? Maybe we could, like, use the poisonous plants in a wall around the town, or let the vines grow to reinforce walls, or… something like that?”
As for the fable Noe had referenced, the girl shrugged. ”Okay, so maybe I’m misremembering,” she said lightly, unbothered. She couldn’t be an expert on everything, after all. In any case, she turned her attention to the yellowed, drooping vines and frowned. ”Okay, that’s bizarre,” she said, peering down at the rot. ”We definitely don’t want to build around here. And it might be worth trying to figure out what it is and where it’s coming from, so that it doesn’t spread and disrupt the ecosystem or the town.”
The taste of your lips is my idea of luxury
Minor powerplay allowed without permission.
Feel free to use force/magic on Noe.
I roll the dice and I hold my breath I'll give you all that I have left So hold me now before my luck runs out I think you're close but I have my doubts
Noe's thoughts pull Colt's head into a nod, because she's considering all options still. She is by no means a professional at building new towns in furious deserts amid toxic plants. "Maybe you could talk to him?" Colt suggests, glancing over at Noe, curious how much weight she wishes to bear. "I'll be running to King's End before long, so if you wanted to ask him and relay anything to me when I return, it'd be appreciated." A show of trust, but after a pause, Colt adds. "Or I could put up a notice in the town for the job if you'd prefer." Noe is not at her beck and call after all. A helpful citizen and a core part of Hak Etme's transformation, but not bound to the tasks of leadership.
"I have given it some thought," Colt admits with a small, distant sort of mumble. "I think the fae in the Greatwood are part of why that balance works so well, and those plants are impressive in scale. These ones seem more apt to smother us in our sleep if we build them into our bedrooms." Which is kind of what she likes about them, but from a safe enough distance to admire their pluck without falling prey to it.
A soft head shake answers Noe. "Not sayin' you had it wrong. Just sayin' what I got out of it." She glances over curiously, not meaning to dismiss the thought, and it seems as a whole they share the agreement that this place needs the balance of all its life.
Yet when they slow and encounter the fungus or whatever is ailing the plants, Colt can't keep back the small laugh. "See, this is why I need you." Her lips tighten into a smile as she glances from the inspection of the foliage to Noe. "It's good to get your take on things, because where you see danger, I saw opportunity. Figured if the plants are already dyin' here, that cutting them back to make room for something new wouldn't harm the rest, and might benefit it to cut out the rot." She shrugs. "You're right though, could be a sign that the soil or the area is no good and it's spread the issue once again."
Marking the area with a yellow ribbon, Colt presses on. So they steadily make their way around the Suvahasi's Furance border, with some other animals noted, and one particularly toxic-flowerheavy section of flora jotted down. Colt gives pause one again though when she sees a section of jungle a little different from the rest. "Looks like a lot of new growth here instead of established growth." She points to the smaller leaves, the thinner stems, the way nothing looms. "Might be the best time to integrate a new species is before the area's fully established itself." Maybe, this was their spot at last.
You've got me in this trance And I need your hand to win If I have to leave this up to chance You're a gamble and I'm all in
Received a Gilded Market wig from Remi that resembles her usual hair and is enchanted to stay on better than most wigs | has a reverse centaur tattoo on her left hand with the legs going down her pointer and middle fingers that looks like this.
