Key Quest Raise You Like a Phoenix
Leatherworker

Age: 36 | Height: 175cm / 5'9 | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 3 - Strg: 16 - Dext: 17 - Endr: 20 - Luck: 8 - Int:
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#29
His fingers were in her mane, in her fur, gently guiding the trusting pony forward in the night. She leaned into the ropes, despite how uncomfortable they were. They dug against her skin, so he whispered soothingly to her, watching her eyes, her ears, her muzzle; close behind him Amalia cried out their success.

He felt the shiver travel down the ropes as the crossbeam came to rest against the top, and asked his pony to stop, to be its anchor as they figured—

the shriek was like a whiplash through his mind

His fingers slid through thick, gray fur, towards the disturbed and bloodied snow. His knees met the ground, sending a painful jolt through his entire body. The darkness whispered again. Rory, dumbfounded, stared at his empty hands. He wasn't supposed to.. shouldn't have...

What had been the point of it, anyway? Anger flashed in his eyes, lips pulling into a snarl as he glanced up at Amalia; he staggered to his feet. She was always so pitiful, so pathetic, so anxious—she knew all her ideas were shit so why did she voice them anyway?

They were doing her dirty work here in the darkness, and what was she going to do when the perch was whole again? Probably just fucking leave them out here and take all the credit for herself, thinking her precious gods would finally notice her pitiful existence.

Edy screamed at her, and from where he was standing, he could almost imagine feeling it—the life that left her body, until it was just Amalia, collapsed on the ground.

She'd got what was coming for her.

So now it was time for the loudmouthed girl to get her due too, so when she came over to Amalia he flailed ineffectually at her. He was just so tired, his body heavy, sluggish, but the endless night kept whispering in his ears, urging him on, even as Edrei picked up the prone girl and took off with her.

Rory swayed on his feet, and his smoldering eyes fell on the white raven next.
Jigano Silversmith
the Sage
Provost of the Loreseekers Soul Shepherd
Portal Guardian
Age: 36 | Height: 6'2" | Race: Attuned x Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 12 - Strg: 30 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 38 - Luck: 42 - Int:
ISUMA - Mythical - Griffin (Venomous)
Played by: Cirago Offline
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#30
Though he hadn’t helped to build the perch, he had watched his friends – native-born and terrified of the Long Night – abandon shelter and safety and rush to fix it, risking their lives to do so. He knew it was important, and after the insanity and danger and prices they had already paid, his focus had narrowed to seeing it done, lest everything they had risked and paid in blood be in vain.

The antlers seemed to provide some protection, somehow. Magic, of course, divine or simply protective, and now wasn’t the time to experiment. Edy and Rory had raised the beam high, settling it back into place, and Jigano croaked and fluffed his feathers along with Amalia in excitement. He didn’t want to let go of the antler, but if he could hold his mind firm long enough to wrap the extra dangling ropes around the poles and use his beak to tie them off—

Not even Edy’s sneering could distract him from the bloom of hope in his heart. But the scream that pierced the night, knife-sharp and jagged as a sawblade could, as could the sudden pull of gravity as the antler he was perching on dropped suddenly to the ground. The raven flapped mightily but couldn’t even slow its fall, his clever toes wrapped tightly around it right up until it hit the ground. It was a short, swift drop, and he staggered along the antler’s length but kept his balance as he turned one bright blue eye up at his fiery friend in horror as she once again lost herself to the darkness within.

Then Amalia’s voice caught his attention and he looked to Rory

No, not Rory, not again

and a mournful wail burst from his beak. His stupid, useless beak, and his stupid, useless secrecy that was going to cost more than one friend their lives this night.

Edy was already in motion, swearing, shouting, casting magic towards two wounded humans who couldn’t protect themselves, and Jigano flung himself from one form to the next with an utter lack of grace, forcing feathers to shrink and harden, feeling his beak melt back into his face as his body expanded, legs lengthening and gaining muscle

it wasn’t fast enough

as Ama hit the ground and Edy came back to her senses

too little too late

and Jigano knelt on all fours in the snow, one hand on the antler and the other outstretched in useless warning.

He ducked his head, feeling madness of a different sort curdling through his veins, guilt and rage that needed no demons to stoke their fires, choking him to silence as he slammed his non-antlered fist to the ground, hearing the cackling all around them, kept at bay by… by the light of the antlers…

The bard looked up to see Edy lifting a limp Amalia and stumbling towards the Rathskeller – towards Isla, and Vervain, and those who might be able to do what he could not. That left himself and a maddened Rory and the ghosts in the night who were so seethingly, irrationally desperate to keep them from fixing the perch.

A perch Amalia might have just died to fix and protect, for a bird that might or might not come, but the books he had found with Remi had spoken of heroes. Of light bathing the settlement and keeping the very real monsters back. He had scoffed at them as being tales, but then, he had thought the monsters mere ghost stories as well. How wrong he’d been about the latter… and they were afraid of that damn perch being fixed.

But he could fix nothing while Rory cast around in a maddened daze, barely on his feet from the wounds Edy and Jigano had burned and torn into his skin.

Rory!

Jigano rose to his feet, shoving the antler into his shirt heedless of how the fabric tore and wedging it beneath the tight wrap of his belt to keep it against his skin as he scrambled across the snow to reach his friend and the antler Rory had dropped. Scooping it up, he grabbed the dangling end of rope from Esaia’s back and slipped around behind the hunter. He looped the rope around the antler and Rory’s hand, tying the two together loosely enough so that Rory could slip out of the loop easily if he needed to, but that he wouldn’t simply be able to drop or jerk away from the antler. With one hand still holding Rory’s to one antler and the other curved protectively around the other man, Jigano bent his head to speak softly, voice breaking with guilt and regret and breath warm against his friend’s ear. ”I am so, so sorry…” All the while Jigano used his body to shield Rory from any other attacks that might come at them.

Jigano changes to human form, stuffs the antler in his shirt and belt so it's held against his skin, and loosely ties Rory's hand around the second antler while shielding him with his own body.


Age: 6 | Height: | Race: Attuned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#31
the perch
Silence. Seething, cold and seemingly endless, after the shriek that caused the reign of chaos. But two of those would-be heroes had fled into the night. Abandoning the perch, abandoning hope... but saving themselves, perhaps.

Two others remained. The darkness boils around them, filled with endless shadows and nameless bodies. This time there is no debris launched in their direction. There is no screaming to burst eardrums. The antlers - those fucking antlers - are tied fast, or tucked away where they cannot be snatched or dropped.

And so it was a low, velvety rrrrrrrrumble that rippled beneath the duo's feet, trying to shake the very foundations of that lovely perch that had been so beautiful and so damaged by the night...

The perch judders.

It sways, the main beam (still not secured) teetering and threatening to fall.

...But it does not.

Eyes in the dark look on, hungry, watching for the couple's next move.



The monsters attempt to topple the perch but it holds fast!

Jigano and Rory are both protected from the madness and the monsters by the light of the antlers.

Will they use this opportunity to flee to safety? Or will they try to secure the perch?

POST ORDER:

1. Jigano
2. Rory
Jigano Silversmith
the Sage
Provost of the Loreseekers Soul Shepherd
Portal Guardian
Age: 36 | Height: 6'2" | Race: Attuned x Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 12 - Strg: 30 - Dext: 45 - Endr: 38 - Luck: 42 - Int:
ISUMA - Mythical - Griffin (Venomous)
Played by: Cirago Offline
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Posts: 3,914 | Total: 7,219
MP: 10170
#32
Jigano flinched as the earth shook beneath them, sucking in a sharp breath and curling his arm gently around Rory’s waist to hold him steady. ”I won’t leave you,” he promised quietly, using his own excellent balance to ride them through minor earthquake. He looked to the perch in grim determination, willing it to hold steady, and was almost surprised when, a few moments later, the earth steadied and the perch did as well.

Exhaling slowly, he squeezed his friend’s hand and the antler still in it. ”Earlier, with that beaver… can you do it again? Something to get those ropes secured. A bird of some sort, or a monkey…?” Did the barrier even have monkeys? He hesitated, then gave a little shake of his head. ”We get that perch fixed, and then we move.” He raised his head to look over his shoulder at the darkness around them, glaring at it as he continued to protect Rory as best he could. ”Isla will be in the Infirmary.... You won’t have to walk far. The horses might be on their own though, I’m sorry for that…” They were smart though, and knew the way back to the farm. He was more worried about Isuma, the little gryphon determined to reach him, afraid and alone as she made her way to the edge of the settlement following the glow of his heart and the tracks their horses had left in the snow.

The bard held himself tense and ready to shift them both aside in case any more debris was flung their way, however, unwilling to let anything hurt Rory again.

Jigano protects Rory and makes a plan for escape!
Leatherworker

Age: 36 | Height: 175cm / 5'9 | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 3 - Strg: 16 - Dext: 17 - Endr: 20 - Luck: 8 - Int:
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MP: 970
#33
Except it wasn't a raven anymore.

It was a man.

Rory had missed when it happened, too intent on staring daggers at Amalia until she fell, but now he saw it. Oh, he saw it. He saw all of it. The hair, the face, the arms, the hands

And he advanced on Rory, and Rory bared his teeth, wishing he could repay him in kind, wishing his shoulders could slide around his chest a little and his teeth lengthen and a wave of gray to ripple down his back—but he was just Rory, and his eyes burned darkly as he watched the human approach.

There could only be one explanation for this shift: now that they were alone, he was going to do away with Rory, but, well, Rory wasn't going to go quietly. "Oh, so now it suits you to shift, you fuck—"

But deftly the man seemed to just flow around him, behind him, and the antler pressed against his wrist. His hand. His elbow. The tines tangled up in his arm, the movement jarring his already strained nerves and the blackness threatened again.

How much longer before what had been done to him actually overpowered him?

The world was silent again.

".. oh," he said, finding himself more or less pressed up against him, an arm wrapped around his waist for support. The ground rattled beneath them, and Esaia stepped lightly on the spot, anxious, just wanting to be free of this place.

The sudden warmth against his back was treacherous. The darkness called out again, sweetly, gently; to simply fall into it... His breaths were quiet and shallow, and the unfamiliar voice washed over his mind like water. "Just turn them loose," he mumbled guilty, with regards to the ponies.

There was food left out for the Luxere... Surely they'd come home, and find it?

Amalia was gone.

Rory swallowed the lump in his throat, and looked up at the perch. It was her monument: she had inspired them, all of them, and together they had achieved this. And now she had.. died..? For it? Impossible. It seemed too unreal, but there he was, leaning against the mysterious Attuned, neither Amalia nor Edrei still around. He didn't even know where they had gone.

Monkeys... Rory had long ago ceased reading, but his mother had been full of stories. She had often taken them to the Atheneum, looking for things; bits and pieces of the old world, bits and pieces of the new. He had seen bestiaries. There were no monkeys within the barrier, but he knew monkeys. Small. Clever.

He closed his eyes, and there they were: two of them, tiny, roughly the size of cats. Dark brown bodies, long tails, clever hands, clever eyes. Chittering and chattering they scaled the perch, without a fear of falling. They hopped this way and that, always clever; dexterous hands finding the loose rope ends and wrapping them around the perch, tying them off, one by one.

Easy. Clever.

If only it'd hold.. Then all that was left was to set the horses free, and go.

Forget this wretched night.

This wretched place.

Tears burned behind Rory's eyelids.



Rory uses Capuchin monkeys to try and secure the perch!


Age: 6 | Height: | Race: Attuned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#34
the perch
Quick and clever, the monkeys looped round and around the perch, tightening here and knotting there, and like a lonely sentinel in the night, the structure began to look like what it once was. Hope fired afresh through the darkness, and it was the colour of a red Luxere's antlers.

A second rrrrrrrrumble purred beneath the men's feet, but it was even less effective than the last. The perch was secured. It would hold, and all would be well.

Against the odds, Jigano and Rory have succeeded.



Thus concludes the KQ! All four participants receive KQ credit, but unfortunately Edrei and Amalia do not receive the rewards as they were not present for the end.

The rewards for Rory and Jigano will be revealed later on in LongNight - please be patient as it is plot relevant. Their next thread must detail them getting to a place of safety, as Rory is in dire need of medical attention.

Thanks for participating, everyone.


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