Closed [Craven Manor] Charnel Vapors (Madeira)

Hurik begins hunting for the past with a pretty girl.

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Considered one of the most mysterious cities in Mizahar, Alvadas is called The City of Illusions. It is the home of Ionu and the notorious Inverted. This city sits on one of the main crossroads through The Region of Kalea.

[Craven Manor] Charnel Vapors (Madeira)

Postby Hurik on December 8th, 2017, 3:58 pm

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2nd of Spring, 517 AV


Hurik let a hiss seep from his mouth unbidden, and he clenched his fist. He reached at his hip for... what? He was a petching ghost! Still, he supposed that he had one weapon at his disposal; The mists. He willed them to curl off of his form as menacingly as he could manage. That meant producing long tendrils of the stuff rolling off of his fingers and fizzling audibly into the air, resembling fire. He moved to force himself between Madeira and the Myrian, and gestured back to the table.

"I'll join you. My partner is going to stay here and keep an eye on the others patrons." Hurik followed the Myrian back to their table, and held a warding hand out to Madeira, indicating to her to stay put at the bar, which he'd deemed a neutral space. Hurik sat down across from the two Myrians and clasped his hands. I hope I know what I'm doing. He met the Myrian's gaze, the one who had invited him over and stared her right back in the eye. He didn't flinch, wince, or cringe, and he growled.

"Where's my body?"

Hurik put out a dominating posture, tried to divert soulmist to his arms, and face, and generally emphasize his strength. He also figured he was trying to impress Madeira, but pushed her to the back of his mind for the moment. As dangerous a situation as this was, he was determined to get something out of it. If this went poorly, Hurik decided, he'd bring Madeira home immediately. He probably should have done it the moment he found that he hadn't any sense of familiarity about Ionu's Wager, but barring that, he supposed they'd have to find another lead.

I'd best make this all-or-nothing, Hurik thought. Flexing his soulmist, Hurik let his mists gather around his head, lending deep shadows to his face in the already dark room. He willed his eyes to change colour to a solid black, hoping the simplicity of that would prove successful. He couldn't feel the change, but he hoped to find that it had worked by gauging the reactions of the Myrians.

"You'd better not give me any shyke either, or else let's just say..." Hurik leaned in close, a snarl fierce on his face. "If I can't recover my own body, I'll go looking for another." A sudden, powerful urge to kill these two surged in Hurik, and he lunged forward teeth bared. A shrieking, piercing noise split the air. Hurik backed off, but maintained a level gaze with the Myrian, hands resting calmly on the table.

Hurik's eyes flicked to the table, then he returned to staring them down. Gods. He'd rent long thin scratches through the veneer and the grain of the table, by complete accident using soulmist. He felt a pang of irritation, remembering his utter failure at knocking on a door. Somehow he knew that if he tried to do something of that nature intentionally, he'd fail. He also was forced to withdraw his tendrils to a length that made them merely dance across his skin. It seemed that intentional or not, he'd expended soulmist to perform that parlor trick. Everything rested on how these filthy cannibals reacted to his threat, on whether or not they actually knew anything.

Boxcode credit: Roselina.
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All credit goes to the amazing Arisia!
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[Craven Manor] Charnel Vapors (Madeira)

Postby Madeira Dusk on December 13th, 2017, 6:37 am

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Madeira's eyes travelled up the six feet of hardened, battle-scared Myrian, and something in her gut shrivelled and died. The woman and her silent companion were the purring, powerful embodiment of Krysus, and she was a skinny teenage girl with rapidly retracting testicles and a useless ability to talk to ghosts.

Suddenly Hurik was there between them. The ghost was manifesting as hard as he could, his soulmist ripping around him in a storm. All three women were forced back a step as the uncomfortable, electric cold of his soulmist grazed them. In the enclosed space the bloody, acidic smell of melting copper lifted from his manifested form in a scent unique to him.

The barman, who couldn't recognize the signs of a riled ghost but could still spot a brewing fight from several kilometres, reached under the bar for a hidden weapon. The oldest and tallest of the two Myrians, the one who spoke, lifted her hand in a pacifying gesture.

"We want no trouble", she purred. Madeira saw another glimpse of her filed teeth, and a tongue tattooed with foreign words around what might have been a skull. "Come with us, Spirit."

There was something wrong with her mouth. Something Madeira recognized dimly, but before she could formulate why the Myrian had closed her full lips into a predatory smile.

Madeira tried to subtly catch Hurik's attention, but he was already following them to their table. Though not before signalling Madeira to stay behind to 'keep an eye on the other patrons'. It was then that Madeira noticed that every eye in the establishment was on them. Perhaps asking after murderers, slapping the table and the overt display of ghostly wrath did not endear them to the den of hardened criminals. Most were eyeing the ghost was apprehension, perhaps having never seen one angry before, but a fair number were watching the skinny blonde boy at the bar who was franticly scooping a handful of glittering gold mizas into a ripe, round purse.

Madeira was too far away to hear the conversation, but no one in Alvadas missed the shriek. Her eyes widened as Hurik hung poised over the table, his face alight with malicious intent. He wasn't angry- Madeira knew what his anger looked like. He was murderous. With his soulmist routed through his upper body he looked like the powerful figure he was before he died.

"Such a waste," the Myrian purred. Her companion had pushed back in her rickety chair, looking windswept and wary in the wake of the ghost's outburst. But the older was not only unruffled, her dark eyes glittered with and even darker intent. Her tattooed tounge swept hungrily over her pointed teeth. "So much vigor is very unbecoming of a man. Must we teach you how a lowly male speaks to his betters?"

She got to her feet and leaned forward in a posture mirroring Hurik’s. And for one wild moment Madeira saw this at a distance and thought she was about to kiss him. Then at the last moment her mouth opened wide, and she saw it again. That unnatural layer over her tongue and teeth, something that pulled at her spiritist intuition. It wasn't until the Myrian lunged forward that the pieces clicked. It was the same thing she saw in objects handled by a ghost, it was the residue of soulmist.

Her teeth were imbued.

The Myrian's teeth ripped into the ghost's throat just as Madeira jumped to her feet.

"Hurik!"

As if that one word was the spark that lit the powderkeg, the entire den erupted. Those closest to Madeira lunged towards her, taking advantage of her vulnerability now that her intimidating companion was trapped. Others took advantage of the chaos to snatch at the betting pools on the tables in front of them, coming away with thick handfuls of mizas and a knife in the ribs for their troubles. And still more knocked tables flying as they sprang away from whatever the shyke was happening.

Dodging the first set of grasping hands, Madeira made to claw her way to Hurik and the Myrian women.
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[Craven Manor] Charnel Vapors (Madeira)

Postby Hurik on December 13th, 2017, 9:02 pm

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2nd of Spring, 517 AV


Hurik couldn't remember the last time he'd had a woman's lips on his neck, but the searing pain and rising feeling of panic within him both seemed to indicate it hadn't gone anything like this. Hurik thrashed about frantically, but while he lacked flesh and blood to tear and potentially gravely wound, the nature of his soulmist left him held fast in this Myrian bitch's jaws.

No normal human's bite could be as dangerous as that of a Myrian's. All seasoned warriors had heard the stories of how the jungle-dwelling she-devils had fangs where nice squared teeth ought to be, and how they kept their fangs sharpened by feasting on the flesh, sinew, and bone of their foes. It just happened to be Hurik's vast misfortune to come across one who'd also developed a taste for Soulmist. Hurik could feel it, seeping much as blood might, from the spaces in his neck where her teeth tore at him.

Madeira's voice screamed out his name, and his gaze darted to her as she pushed through a swarm of people. His options were certainly dwindling, and the Myrian seemed to sink her teeth even deeper, making him grunt involuntarily. Then Hurik realized that much as he lacked blood and bone, so too would his voice be similarly immaterial. "Madeira! Soulmist! Now, petch you!"

It frustrated Hurik to no end that he couldn't even resist his attacker properly. Doubtless she would trounce him were he still flesh and blood, as most Myrians were far superior in hand-to-hand encounters than their less exotic counterparts. Of course it also wasn't lost on Hurik that were it not for his ghostly status, he would be choking on his own blood right now. Even so, he was startlingly weak. The little information he'd gathered on his capability was not inspiring. He had performed two types of interaction with the real world; Hurik had lifted and tapped objects with pitiable capacity, and he'd materialized his form. Of course he was far more competent at the second, but his unpleasant interaction with the Craven Manor's front door was still fresh in his mind. He was also growing far weaker, and could feel his strength flagging by the second.

Though Madeira might be able to provide him with a boost, Hurik was far too seasoned a warrior to rely on some form of back-up. He knew that in life and death, it was win or lose, and you had to fight like a petching rabid dog to win. Hurik wasn't the sort of man to ignore that cold simple fact. Of course the Myrian was probably twice as cold, twice as hard, twice as steeled as Hurik had ever been. It made no difference. Hurik had his one chance, and he chose to use it well. He gathered the dwindling reserves of his Mists, coalesced about his hands and fingers...

And drove the fingers of his right hand into the Myrian's eyes.

Shock. An automatic reaction to blinding pain. Blessed release. And it only lasted a petching second. The Myrian would have probably been downed if Hurik had been lucky, and not ghostly. Try as he might, his essence was not concentrated enough to actually pierce her venomous orbs, and from what he could tell Hurik had only pissed her off more. Hurik tried to back away but as he did so, the Myrian lunged. Hurik knew what to expect, and he dodged out of the way only for her to twist with speed Hurik had definitely not expected. "Shyke!" He growled, as her fanged mouth closed around his shoulder.

Why had he tried to play at being the fighter again? Hurik's consciousness buckled, along with his body, such as it was. His Mists were growing thin, and he felt nauseous. He should've... Should've taken his chance to flee... Why hadn't he fled? Every time a raid went ill, or a contract soured, he'd run with the best of them... Used to jokingly refer to him as Hurik the Horsemane, outrunning his own steed in his haste. Shyke, he was forgetting something. Was it the beautiful girl with the ebony hair and the scarlet smile, so like his own hair? She'd been his for just an evening of coy discussion and trail rations, before letting him chase her all the way back to her tent, only to be shut out at the last moment, told to ask after her when her father joined them? Was it her of the green eyes and the curved figure, with her laugh so harmonious as to prompt birds to sing? The one to whom his tattered heart had found its last and truest homestead? The one he'd asked to marry, who'd accepted him of all people? The Bloodmane, killer of men, stealer of women, and thief of rich bastards' sons? It was her wasn't it? Renalla. Of course, but then why couldn't he remember the faces of their children? Where were the countless evenings spent together watching the little ones play as he cooked supper? Why, oh why, couldn't he remember those beautiful dark locks of Renalla's turning silver...?

Madeira.

"Madeira," Hurik whispered, his frightened and broken awareness clinging to something he couldn't explain. He didn't know who Madeira was, or why their name came to him now, as he so surely must be at the cusp of death. He couldn't explain the way he felt either. He'd always pictured death as feeling peaceful, but instead of feeling exhaustion fade away, Hurik felt as if an ever greater weight was pressing down on his chest. His senses had all shrunk down to just what he could see in front of him.

It was a kind of mist, thick and soupy with condensation, rolling through the darkness in long and disturbed tendrils. It reminded Hurik of the thick of battle, when blades severed men, and their insides spewed out. This misty red fog always hung in the air after the fight ended, choking the victors and clogging Hurik's throat. An old battle-brother had once explained the phenomenon to him, as a kind of omen sent down from the gods, to warn men of committing such violence in excess. He'd explained that men who saw them, were choked by them, had committed the greatest atrocities and dealt the most pain and suffering.

They were called Charnel Vapors, and Hurik was drowning in them.

Boxcode credit: Roselina.
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[Craven Manor] Charnel Vapors (Madeira)

Postby Madeira Dusk on December 29th, 2017, 6:51 am

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"Madeira! Soulmist! Now, petch you!"

Searching hands grasped at Madeira's pockets and the straps of her rucksack. The soulbeads rattled inside against the jar of raw dough in clear, musical tones. A muscled arm caught her hard around the waist and lifted her shrieking into the air. Through the crush of people, the flash of blades and the flying chips and playing cards, she saw Hurik being driven to the ground by a woman made of thunderclouds and bloodlust. The woman was roaring with a savage delight as she ripped into the ghost.

And there was nothing Madeira could do.

Soulmist was not blood. Soulmist did not pump from a living body, fully formed and accessible. It was concentration and effort and a process that took time. Time she did not have.

The arm under her went slack, and the Spiritist tumbled through the forest of swinging arms and hit the hardwood floor. And with her cheek pressed against years of sour stains, and heavy boots vibrating through her bones, she knew she had less than a tick to make a potentially disastrous decision.

Centimetres from her head a bottle hit the ground in a spray of glass shrapnel. She seized the largest piece of the bottleneck and pushed herself to her knees. A heavy boot tripped into her, and she felt something snap as a heel crushed into her left hand. She swiped at the ankle with her broken bottle and was rewarded with a dark line of blood, and the pressure vanished from her hand. She got to her feet, cradling her twice damaged hand, slashing at everything in her way.

But she wasn't fighting to get to Hurik anymore, she was fighting to get away.

The ghost would pull through. You couldn't kill something that was already dead. But the thought of what he might look like when he pulled though turned her cold. That woman was definitely a spiritist. Did that mean she could dust him? Or would she trap him somehow, with a finely crafted cage of soulmist and threats? Or was it simply his death she wanted to taste, and would content herself to ripping his ghost to pieces, to cannibalize his soul like her people were said to do to bodies.

It didn't matter, she told herself, mouth closed tight against the rising urge to scream for Hurik. It didn't matter, she couldn't save him.

She broke through the thick of the riot and ran straight into the wall at the end of the dark grimy hallway. People were pushing other aside in their mad haste to flee. Some clutching pockets spilling with ill-gotten gold, some clutching ribs painted with blood. The young blonde boy was merely swept with the tide, and spat out into the festive streets of Alvadas.
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[Craven Manor] Charnel Vapors (Madeira)

Postby Madeira Dusk on February 5th, 2018, 9:23 pm

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Hurik

Skills
  • Materialization: 5xp
  • Projection: 3xp

Lores
  • Materialization: manipulating image
  • Location: Craven Manor
  • Location: Ionu's Wager
  • Lore of assesing a dangerous situation

Awards & Retribution


Notes
Notes here.


Madeira Craven

Skills
  • Observation: 3xp
  • Socialization: 1xp
  • Endurance: 2xp
  • Investigation: 2xp
  • Logic: 2xp
  • Persuasion: 1xp
  • Brawling: 1xp

Lores
  • Location: Ionu's Wager

Awards & Retribution


Notes
Notes here.
User avatar
Madeira Dusk
long may she reign
 
Posts: 1774
Words: 1599220
Joined roleplay: October 11th, 2016, 7:45 pm
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Journal
Plotnotes
Medals: 11
Featured Contributor (1) Featured Thread (3)
Mizahar Grader (1) Overlored (1)
Donor (1) One Thousand Posts! (1)
One Million Words! (1) Lhavit Seasonal Challenge (1)
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