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Rohka needs to decide what she wants out of her future sooner than later. A change in the air may form the path she takes..

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A city floating in the center of a lake, Ravok is a place of dark beauty, romance and culture. Behind it all though is the presence of Rhysol, God of Evil and Betrayal. The city is controlled by The Black Sun, a religious organization devoted to Rhysol. [Lore]

Warped Sense of Self

Postby Rohka on June 4th, 2019, 1:55 am

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8th day of Summer, 519 AV

“Grayson, I think I should go home.”

He looked at her for a tick with what Roh thought was mix between pity and annoyance before the impression faded into a nod, his eyes downcast. She knew she couldn’t leave without talking to Grayson about it. She almost wished he would ask him to stay, but they had no real relation. He was the owner of The Malt House, that was all. It didn’t matter that he had been her main source of strength and support over the years she had lived alone upstairs. Roh figured he was simply a man trying to make a living through his own establishment. He wasn’t family afterall.

Grayson lifted his eyes once more, from where his hands had been idly drying off a wooden mug behind the barkeep. It was past closing time, all of the patrons had been gone for at least half a bell, and Roh had just come downstairs because she couldn’t sleep. Usually, she wouldn’t say anything. Usually, she would just walk out the door and continue walking to clear her head.

She couldn’t anymore. Not since the petching curfew.

Calloused fingers reached up to scratch his own nose before the man snapped his gaze back onto his resident sybil. He had a feeling this was coming. For several seasons she had been telling fortunes in his place of business; but there was something about her demeanor that didn’t seem like it was enough for her. She seemed restless. He would have dared to mention that she seemed bored but he knew Roh wouldn’t want to hear it. She would blather on about how she met an old lady who told her a funny story at the market that day, or the little boy who taught her a new little game, or some other ridiculous story while her eyes stayed somewhat lifeless. As if she just wanted to seem like the parts of her day were as exciting as she hoped they would be. He figured it had something to do with this craft she had been learning. Something about fortune telling probably wasn’t quite right for her. He had suggested that she make art, something she could even make in Rhysol’s name, to honour him and bring about the change she wished to see way back when. He’d admired that about her. He’d enjoyed seeing her push for what she wanted, like when she’d asked to have a table to practice her skill here. She did a fair job of convincing him. What happened to that spirit?

He stopped his train of thought in its tracks when he saw her eyes begin to glaze over.

“Why?” The question came out in a voice that was slightly higher for him than usual, surprising himself with the way he’d expressed something almost leaning on anguish. Grayson quickly cleared his throat with a short cough before continuing in his normal, logical tone, and the sybil barely noticed. “I mean, you should do whatever you want, really.” He paused, looking down again, not sure if he was willing to say any more.

Rohka tapped her boot against the freshly mopped wooden floor, trying to keep herself from acknowledging the feelings of exasperated frustration within her while holding back the obvious tears that were welling in her eyes. She didn’t really want to go back home. Home wasn’t far away, she’d been home to visit a few seasons ago. She just felt—

“Roh, look, you deserve to be happy. I don’t know about your situation right now or how it is at home, but you definitely don’t have to live this way if you don’t want to.” Grayson had put the mug down now. He gripped the edge of the bar with both hands, leaning forward to look straight into the sybil’s face of confused gloom. His voice began to rise in volume as he continued to speak at Rohka, his will to be clear and concise as strong as it was intimidating:

“Don’t ask me what it takes to be happy cause I can’t tell you that, there’s nothing I can tell you that I haven’t already told you before. You want to change something, do it. Don’t come here telling me what you think you should or shouldn’t do. Go petching talking to Vanessa about that shyke, I don’t need to hear it, I couldn’t care less what you do with your life. What I care about is my patrons being entertained and their stomachs being full, and if you can’t bring that through your little business of yours anymore, then quit and leave. Is that what you’re saying? Are you saying you can’t do this anymore?”

Rohka blinked as a sinking feeling plunged into her gut, the first drops of tears beginning to fall onto her cheeks. “I—”

“Listen Roh. You’re young. Decide whatever brings you and Rhysol the highest good.” The owner quickly turned his back, picking up the mug and putting it back up on the shelf. “That’s all I’ve got,” he threw a glance behind his shoulder “Go.” He start to walk out from behind the the bar and towards his room in the back of the Malt House. He called out as he opened the wooden door without looking at the sybil, knowing that her expression would start to tear something within him. “I expect all the tables to be set tomorrow if you choose to stay.”

And the door slammed shut.

WC = 915
Last edited by Rohka on June 18th, 2019, 8:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Warped Sense of Self

Postby Rohka on June 4th, 2019, 2:05 am

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Rohka wiped her tears with the back of her hand and spit phlegm out onto the floor in spite.

He didn’t stop to listen. At all. The nerve of him. Yes, true, she should have talked to Vanessa about this and not him. She should have known that that’s what he would say, she couldn’t have expected anything else. What did she think, that he’d suddenly understand all the thoughts and feelings running through what felt like a mind full of nothing but chaos? No, of course he wouldn’t. But like usual, she couldn’t find fault with what he’d said. That didn’t mean she couldn’t be angry about it.

‘Happy’. Joy. She could choose to feel it right now if she wanted to, right? What’s stopping me?

She slowly walked out of the House and sat at a table on the outer patio, one that was closest to the walkway. The air was quiet. It had become typical recently, eerily so. The sybil reached into her pack and took out her small leather pouch of cards. She quickly shuffled them, knowing she was about to give herself a reading, feeling into the cards as though they were merely an extension of herself. It was also an escape, even if she would never admit it to herself. An escape from thinking about Grayson's effect on her. An escape from just wanting some form of comfort about this, but getting none at all. She couldn't let herself feel any of that. She didn't need to cry anymore. The sybil bottled it up and continued to shuffle through her cards.

Although it might seem common to do a reading on oneself, Rohka had only ever done so when she felt that she needed external guidance—which isn’t often. The sybil didn’t feel right letting the cards tell herself so much about her life. It had become a growing concern for her, wondering just how much influence she was letting the cards have over herself and her partners.

But tonight she was determined to try anything.

Rohka devised the question and layout in her head, thinking of how to go about making the idea in her mind become tangible to her eyes. She wanted insight on a choice. On choices. She didn’t want the cards to tell her what the right choice was. She just wanted information.

First she thought of just two cards. Option A vs Option B. She picked two cards and laid them face down in front of her. But before deciding to flip them, a breeze picked up and brushed against her face. It made her pause...

No, that’s not enough. I want the pros and cons of each option.

She picked out two more cards. This felt closer to being what she wanted. She laid them all out face down in a line. Her fingers were just about to lift the corner of the first before she heard a tinkling bell in the distance. The sybil paused again...

I have the card for Option A’s advantages here. The card for Option B’s advantages here. And then this one is Option A’s problems and this one is Option B’s problems. What am I missing? I know I’m missing something else I want to know. I feel like—

That’s when it clicked. Her feelings. Those feelings she always thought she could control. The feelings she wanted to cancel out, and put an X through them all…

“I got it!”

It was a whisper of a eureka. She picked out two more cards and placed them side-by-side. She placed the other four in four corners, to lay out a spread in an ‘X’ shape, with the Feelings being together in the middle, the Advantages being in the top right and left corner, and the Disadvantages being in the bottom right and left corner.

“Right side is for Option A: staying here. Left side is for Option B: going home.” Rohka needed to voice to out, to make the intention clear. “What do I need to know?”

She paused, waiting for a tick, listening and feeling into the area surrounding her. Silence.

The sybil flipped the cards.

Moments passed as she studied the symbols, at once both anxious and borderline shocked. Her cards on Feelings seemed to make the most sense. Staying meant feeling that change was inevitable and going home meant the awareness of leaving behind hopes and dreams.

She didn't want to dwell further on those.

Difficulties with staying would be having to share, to mutually give-and-take, to respect a supportive partnership. Difficulties with going home would be to assess the path, to acknowledge the trials and errors, to learn from criticisms.

The Advantages were what Rohka feared the most. Staying meant having the potential to make things happen, to manifest a vision. Leaving would serve as a warning of self-fulfilling prophecies. The benefit of going home would be all about the strength gained from experience, to learn to get rid of a victim mentality.

These were just the initial pieces of information and Rohka already felt herself getting overwhelmed. She knew the next step would be to analyze the patterns and symbols, to take a closer look at the colors and the deeper inferences... but she couldn’t. She needed space.

The sybil left her cards on the table and decided to talk a walk in the dark.


It is evening and despite the curfew imposed by The Voice, you find yourself on the streets, near the City Center. Although there are claims of dangerous animals roaming the streets at night, it initially seems as though nothing is different. The night sky is filled with stars, the air is pleasant and moist, easy to breath with no real chill that one would expect in Syna’s absence. The curfew put in place by The Voice has forced a bit of silence upon the city; the quiet allowing for even the most obscure sounds to be heard.

It starts with a roar; a sound that penetrates every part of the body beyond what the ears can detect. The entire body trembles and chills at the experience. There is crushing, smashing, crashing and crumbling. A few screams can be heard, cut short and replaced with the sounds of destruction. No matter where you are at, a massive form passes before you and in its wake, complete chaos follows. In its footsteps, the streets are turned to sand, water, blood and fluids indescribable. The buildings lining the road are turned to glass while glass is turned to stone. Those unlucky enough to be caught near the path of horror are swept up in its wake of chaos; their bodies shifting and warping into something else.

As you witness the passing of the terrible creature known by the name of Drav’lak, you also feel a terrible change taking place. Your body shifts and changes, forever changed by the unbridled chaos that the creature embodies. Maybe you feel blessed by the touch of Rhysol or maybe you feel cursed. Regardless, the change happens and you come to know what it is to be one with “Him”.


WC = 808
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Warped Sense of Self

Postby Rohka on June 19th, 2019, 1:32 am

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Cries of pain and terror shrieked in the distance, reverberating against the transformed glass walls behind her, reflecting the moonlit waters now disturbed and sloshing onto the wooden path. The sybil was breathing hard, unable to catch her breath as she lay on the wet ground, completely still, her tearful eyes shut tight.

“ROHKA!” An expression of pure fear and loud shock ran towards her, calling her. “Rohka, oh gods, Rohka!” She could barely hear him. She didn’t want to hear him.

She wished she was dead.

The sybil continued to lie flat on the ground in wait for Grayson’s eventual questioning. Her memory flashed back to the moments that had just passed, trying to piece together what just happened.

The pain had been excruciatingly full. It felt like a bell when it had only been a chime. She’d writhed as the pulsing wave of chaos ran slowly down her spine, bringing her to her knees and silently pushing her forward to grasp the edge of the path. She’d puked into the canal. Repeatedly, as if her small frame was trying to reject the madness beginning to seep into and out of her. Sweat trickled down her forehead while she felt her entire body bulge and contract, the peak of the plunging force concentrating down towards the small of her back and further down. It hurt. It hurt so badly and all she could do was pray to her lord and saviour for it to stop, but the insane pain kept going past her tailbone and swelled outwards, ripping the threads of her simple clothes. Rohka’s mind started to become conscious to a part of her body that she had never known before, her first knowledge of the growing limb beginning to build absolute terror—she spun her head around and caught her initial glimpse of it.

The thing kept growing, evolving before her eyes, sprouting slick scales of dark iridescence around the thick, shank-like appendage. She’d screamed. Horrified at the sight of it and feeling it continue to lengthen became too much to bear on her hands and knees. She whipped her head forward and crawled back, splaying her legs out and lying on her stomach, her cheek pressed to the wooden panels and her arms outstretched above her head. The sybil clasped her hands together, squeezing them in prayer. Please Rhysol! What have I done?! Forgive me, Rhysol!! Please make it go away!

Her thoughts connected with the fresh form and it shook vigorously in the air. Rohka winced at the shock of the sensation while her tears continued to stream down her cheeks. She tried to breathe slower but she couldn’t, the panic building. Her mind was in a frenzy and it reflected through the frantic dance of the extending length that now tapered into a blunt, rounded end. The light of Leth flashed against the myriad of tiny, shiny scales, refracting a rainbow of muted colour across the pristine glass walls of the Malt House. It was this very light that caught Grayson’s eye first when he opened the door to his room, startled awake by the noises and then immediately astonished by the sight of his establishment.

He could see through the glass walls of the buildings all around him. He shook his head, unable to believe what he saw. Was this a dream? No, his beating heart and the vivid scene before him proved otherwise. How had things changed so quickly? He slowly started to walk forward towards the wooden door when he caught a glimpse of a figure on the ground outside. Is that…

The owner stood over her now, having ran out onto the walkway as soon as he realized who he’d seen. He had to pause, to take in the image of the young woman on the ground by his feet. Rohka had managed to control her breathing enough to bring the newly formed tail down to the ground. She was too afraid to move now.

“Roh,” he said gently, crouching down to her. He brought a hand to her shoulder and shook a bit, unsure if she was conscious. Unsure if she could even stand up. How would he get her inside if she couldn’t?

“Come on, Roh, look at me,” the coarse yet warmly urging demand oddly comforted her as her eyes fluttered open, her brows creased in turmoil. “There, that’s it. You’re here, you’re alive,” he broke out into a relieved grin. She saw his expression and she looked at him quizzically, acknowledging the truth of his statement yet almost wishing it weren’t true. She felt like a monster. Deformed, cursed, punished by the gods for a reason she couldn’t understand.

“You need to stand, Roh,” he said, softly. He could hear the screams now, the crumbling of destruction surrounding them. “You shouldn’t have been out here, we need to get back inside before—“

He stopped short when a rush of chaotic mass rampaged across the canal. The terrifying sight left him speechless, but the air around them began to change, forcing a gasp to escape his lips as the sybil began to rise from the ground.

And so did he.

The two of their bodies slowly ascended and they looked into each others eyes in fright. The speed at which they rose quickened, and they both reached out for each other's arms, with Grayson grabbing a nearby chair on the patio to try and bring them back down to the ground with no avail. They rose higher and higher until they were at least ten feet high.

Grayson’s form began to glow. He watched his brightening body in shock and couldn’t control himself anymore.

“HELP! GUARDS! HEEEEELP!”

Rohka joined him in the yelling as her dark tail lit up in colour amidst Grayson’s luminescence, the prehensile limb flailing in the air in tandem with their hysteria.

This was Rhysol’s domain. If they didn’t know it now, they would know it soon:

There was nothing they could do but accept. Accept the glory of his ways.

WC = 1008

Total = 2731

OOC note on the warped effect :
I rolled the #5 in the dicerollercentral channel! And I gave Grayson the #3 effect :D 5- Grow a prehensile tail that acts as an extra limb with half the strength of one’s arm. While not capable of supporting body weight, it can hold and manipulate items with limited capacity. 3 - One’s body becomes luminescent in the absence of light. A dull glow is given off by any exposed flesh when in the presence of limited to no light. Glow in the Dark.
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Warped Sense of Self

Postby Rohka on September 9th, 2019, 12:34 am

GRADES
rohka

Experience
    Fortune Telling +1
    Philosophy +1
Lores:
    Rohka: Self-fortune telling is often an escape from feelings
    Fortune Telling: The ‘Choices’ Spread
    Philosophy: To change something, just do it.
Additional Notes:

+ 1 dark, scaly, iridescent tail (noted in SS thread)


If you have any concerns over this grade, don't hesitate to send me a message on either Discord or Miz. Also, please be sure to EDIT any posts in the grading queue to 'Graded'. Enjoy!
-Rohka ❤
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Rohka
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