I spent ten whole days in Jerusalem
Jorseval Craik
Vagrant / Priest

Age: 33 | Height: 5' 10" | Race: Attuned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#1
Jorseval
death doesn't discriminate
between the sinners and the saints

The Wildwood at dusk was a hushed space, enough so that even in his bare feet the soft pattering of Jory’s rapid footfalls announce his presence. For all that he was a wild thing, he looked the part today; torso stripped bare to the waist and long tendrils of dark paint winding across his skin. He had his bow to hand but his hunt for game was long forgotten. As soon as he’d come upon the grove or red trees, he’d known he was close enough to find the god he’d sought out all his life.

He’d learned of Ludo’s Woods while in the custody of the Fae; though his information was piecemeal at best. All that mattered to him was that here was a shrine to Mort and being so close left no room in his heart for patience. He dashed through the trees, dodging branches and franticly shifting his eyes from tree to tree.

There!

Jory’s eyes lock onto the pair of trees that stand sentinel, and his whole body seizes to a grinding halt. Like a moth transfixed, the candles that burn in carved hollows grip him and his only motion for long moments and his heaving breaths and a thrum of tension that he thought must reach to the deepest core of himself.  The notion that he isn’t ready for this flits into his consciousness, but no mortal creature is ever ready for the Gods. He steps to the edge of the roots between the trees and bends, a cautious reverence absent from his hectic dash now upon him, and places his bow upon the ground. His knives, too, are pulled from the sheaths at his lower back and presented, handle first upon the ground.

“I have been late in seeking the Gods, and for that I am sorry. My knowledge is little, my offerings few, but I would offer my life, my service, for whatever that may be worth. To the Gods of Old, who shaped this world; to Mort, who takes us at the end. “ The prayer is quiet, but steadfast in the hush.
Spooky Rags


Age: 7 | Height: | Race: Attuned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#2
ludo

Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own

"Pretty words."

Ludo's voice echoes from behind the praying mortal, the deity seeming somehow as large as the forest around them; a porcelain mask bobbing about in a sea of leaves and darkness. "Your life and your service... in exchange for what?" The mask spun and bobbed, and rags stroked across Jorseval 's exposed skin, though Ludo did not seem to move at all.

"I hear you, child of the Hollowed Grounds, favoured by the Old Gods. And your time is not up yet. So what is it that you wish for? What is it that you seek?" it asked.

Jorseval Craik
Vagrant / Priest

Age: 33 | Height: 5' 10" | Race: Attuned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 0 - Strg: 8 - Dext: 10 - Endr: 8 - Luck: 9 - Int:
Played by: Laine Offline
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Posts: 21 | Total: 66
MP: 0
#3
Jorseval
death doesn't discriminate
between the sinners and the saints

Jory wasn't sure how he expected an answer (if the Gods saw fit to answer him at all) but the voice coming from behind him caught him off guard. He'd been so focused on the flickering of the twin candles set into the trees but Ludo was, of course, much bigger. The immensity of the voice sent a pleasant shiver down the young priest’s spine and in that moment he did not turn to look but only closed his eyes to savor the presence. Where he felt the long tendrils of rags he leans a little toward the touch and sat back on his heels before opening his even once more and finding the bobbing mask.

”In..in exchange?” honestly a little perplexed he smiled and glanced around at the forrest around him ”I don’t know anything I would need that Rae has not given. But I know my life is just a drop—a joy, yes—but a fleeting one unless it serves some higher purpose.” His words were wretchedly earnest, so enamored with this experience that it left no room for his usual string of inane babble. Even if Ludo banished him forthwith or bid him turn one of the knives to his own throat, Jory could happily suffer it because the Gods were here. Growing up inside the barrier, there was no count to the number of times he'd been told that the Old Gods had abandoned Caido. He'd never once believed it and this was faith come to fruition. "What better purpose than the one the gods give me? I want to know, to be set upon it, whatever your will—their will—may be."
Spooky Rags


Age: 7 | Height: | Race: Attuned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#4
ludo

Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own

Silent and still as the grave, Ludo heard the mortal out. Its mask would appear to look... befuddled, almost, as though it was trying to understand what was being asked of it, and eventually it shook its head from side to side. "You would have it easy," it remarked.

"Rather than to discover your own purpose, you would have me give it to you?" The mask tilted to the side, a little too far to be considered natural, before bobbing back.

"I will not. Pray to Vi, to Rae, if you insist on wanting such a purpose. But Mort wishes only for you to live the life you were given to the full." Ironic, perhaps? But nonetheless true.

Jorseval Craik
Vagrant / Priest

Age: 33 | Height: 5' 10" | Race: Attuned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 0 - Strg: 8 - Dext: 10 - Endr: 8 - Luck: 9 - Int:
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#5
Jorseval
death doesn't discriminate
between the sinners and the saints

Hopes: dashed.
Wind: out of sails.
Erection: flagging.
Jorseval is forcibly removed from his expectations.

‘Whatever you will may be.’ He’d said and Jory had believed his own words but it didn’t make them true. He’d wanted something, wanted it very much infact: a task, a mission, a job, however mundane, however dangerous but something. Even the gentle redirection, to Vi, to Rae, is lost for now and all that the foolish man who called himself a priest hears is the denial. The silence and the stillness sat around the young man as all the grand ideas he'd built in his mind came crashing down. Welcome to Jericho, horn tooting courtesy of Ludo.

He shrinks, pulling his shoulders up towards his ears and dipping his chin in a gesture he hasn’t made in years. It’s almost a flinch. Something of the ratty little urchin boy that didn’t have a place shines through, cracking the excitement, the eagerness with an awful apologetic bewilderment. ”I’m sorry-“ Sorry to be a bother, sorry to be a pain, sorry to take up so much space. ”-to have disturbed you.” He glances down at the three simple weapons of the ground, his only tools worth anything, and they suddenly seem very foolish as an offering. Gods didn’t need to hunt, probably didn’t even need to eat, the Mask that floated here didn’t even have hands with which to wield them. Even if they did, Jory thought, they’d have finer tools that these. Finer tools than him.

Ludo wanted nothing from him. Mort wanted nothing from him. He had nothing worthwhile to offer. He was nothing worthwhile. The tremors started in his hands and he clenched his fingers tight until white knuckles pressed into his thighs. He wanted to be gone, wanted to hide his face like a scolded child but it had always been his notions of service that had served as a mother’s skirts to shield him. ”These aren’t much of anything really…” he says it looking down at the two knives, at the bow, and doesn’t look up again. There’s a squeak to his voice like he’s trying not to let that shake too. ”Is, uh, is there something I could bring next time that you’d like better?”
Spooky Rags


Age: 7 | Height: | Race: Attuned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#6
ludo

Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own

Ludo watched with a tilted head as the mortal before him withered and shrank to nothing - quite the opposite of what he had expected from coming here. Still, a rag snaked out to accept the offering, waving a knife about childishly, in a way that suggested it had no idea what it was doing. "You make little sense, Jorseval," it said without looking directly at him - for of course it knew the name that was written upon his soul.

"You are a man of conviction, who knows not what he wants - who wishes nothing more than for direction. Is that correct?" Lowering the knife, it shrugged its shoulders about his offering. "These are fine."



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