[Reverie - Mod-Thread] - Trial of the Fallen Shroud: Shadowed Presence

Kyrikain's abstract plane, where all who sleep go to imagine and dream.

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Gloomcrest
Posts: 271
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Location: Genteven, The Northern Marches, Daravin
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Mon Jan 02, 2023 12:45 pm

91st of Ash, 4622
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The searing pain that runs through his limbs was enough for the thief to briefly lose his consciousness, only to be brought back by the presence of angry & venom that seeps out of Dahlia’s voice. For someone named after a beautiful flower, there was nothing characteristically charming about her other than looks alone.

Her usual confidents was slowly being marred by the wounds that she has acclimated from their bouts of combat; It was to Jared’s surprise that his mastery over Nightfall proved to be potentially lethal, something that the thief was not proud of any means since killing was not in his moral compass unless it was necessary & while it is required to preserve his own life. It does not sit well in the Alistian’s thief stomach.

As the forest of towering flower & coiling vines that spans across the stems dissipates into the wind, leaving behind a plane of black & white squares with the ever greyplane looming from above. There were no game pieces or plant life, neither Dahlia herself or conjured items that had made its impact on the thief’s body. For truly, this plane harbors nothing more than a mere ten by ten square which alternates between the blackest of black & the alabaster white panes with the edges being more than a blur, one could say that it moved & swirled like thick smoke or ashen gray fog.

Both combatants were briefing heavily, some more than others but this just meant that the finale of this grand show will be nearing its climax. In some strange sense, Jared felt like all of this was merely a test to see if he had the willpower & determination to make a difference in the world even if his influence was as small as a drop in the ocean that covers the world he lives in, his one home & refuge that may only experience once and only once.

Spitting out the Umbralplasm gag out to the side, the thief couldn’t help but let out loud fits of coughing as his body felt heavier by the second as despite slowing down his bleeding, his mortal vessel only had so much body to hold & give back to the world. Jared needed to find out where Dahlia was hiding and that was not going to be an easy feat since the thief lacked the charisma prowess to maintain even a basic haggling or conversation but that did not mean the thief had to try.

“You are right…. Cough You could wait for me… To bleed out… But where is the satisfaction in that… Cough Cough

The thief had to start the conversation even in his extremely wounded state, if the thief had to endure more; He would but how long could he last & how much pain his body could be handled now came down to his desires, his hopes & hard-working nature will boil down to. Could he weather a storm or plunge into a sea of darkness… For now, the fledgling sparrow that left the comfort of his nest almost 2 seasons ago was placed in a trial; If he was worthy to live or vanish like many others long ago, only the tapestry of fate could predict where the story could or will end.


word count: 574
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Mimi Pidders
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Mon Jan 02, 2023 2:27 pm

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Charisma Check: Low
Tactic: Appeal to Dahlia's Pride
Result: Success


"Oh, very well, since it means so much to you. What's the harm in a proper send off for you before you're worm food?"

The woman herself appeared on the game board. Compared to Jared, she did not appear to be suffering too much, at least at first glance. There was some blood on her hands where her fingernails had broken off, and some superficial slashes on her bare legs that had bled onto what had been a fine Daravinic dress before something, presumably Jared's blades, had slashed the fabric to ribbons. If he looked closer, though, he'd notice that she was standing up straight through sheer force of will. Her skin, always pale, was now positively grey. Though to be fair, so was the rest of her: like the rest of her world, she was in black and white, with few shades in between the two most absolute values that existed. The only colorful thing on her were the bloody wounds Jared's scythes had inflicted while she was hidden.

She made a fist and the ground rose up to swallow Jared, submerging him up to his neck in gameboard as her heels clacked toward him across the stone floor, slowly and deliberately. In her hands, a long wooden mallet appeared. While it was meant to intimidate, she ended up using it as a mobility aid, leaning on it as she approached and cursing softly.

"Destestable little rat," she muttered. Dahlia may have been regretting her tendency toward theatrics at this moment, as she had expended far more resources in the fight to this point than she'd expected. She coughed, and a globule of her blood alit upon Jared's cheek as she unsteadily brought the mallet back for a swing at his head.

Jared's mobility was compromised too much to avoid this attack. He is now unable to move from the neck down, and the final blow is coming in fast. He needs to do something, quickly.

word count: 353
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Gloomcrest
Posts: 271
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Mon Jan 02, 2023 6:07 pm

91st of Frost, 4622
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Hearing Dahlia’s heavy breathing & detestable voice; There was something about her voice that really made his blood boil. For someone as arrogant to be in power while people such as himself had to struggle to even put a moldy loaf of bread to live, wasn’t something he could abide by. Taking a moment to let his lucid gaze move up, his once brillant & gleaming citrine was now dull, almost lifeless as the luster was no more than a single shade of mustard yellow.

In Jared’s mind, he was amazed at how he managed to preserve for so long especially with his abilities as being a thief with relatively few combat skills other than his hard-work when it came to his Nightfall & mastery over the past two seasons. Still, his combat prowess was might to be improved as evident on all of the injuries he had sustained in a bout of arcane combat.

Looking at the Compass he used as a makeshift gag, he would use what remaining stamina he had to do to make a check. Enshrouding the compass that sits on the black tile square, the Compass suddenly disappears as the visual aspect of Jared’s compass disappears, leaving a very tiny distortion that would be very hard for anyone to see due to the distortion being hidden by the blackness of the tiles. Knowing fully well that this would be potentially his last breath and whether he could escape this hell hole of a place is another thing that would be difficult to do in his current state.

It was only then that Dahlia herself manifested herself into her reality; Just seeing her form briefly let a smile underneath his charcoal cloth mask as her figure is as pathetic as his own but not as severely as his own condition; the tattered fine Daravinic dress was covered in various slashes and soaking in blood in various places, her legs were also covered in various cuts as well, albeit not as deep as he had hoped and like himself the pale skin was mostly lacking its luster and warmth.

Sensation of cold seemed to drift over the bleeding thief’s body; It was becoming harder to see as his breathing became shallow by the minute but he needed to hold on… Just enough to make it an eye for eye. Yet, despite all that he could, the thief wasn’t ready to go just yet; Jared had some much that he needed to know about himself & the world he calls ‘home’.

Muttering to himself for a moment, the thief couldn’t help but feel a well of sorrow as he was going to leave a job unfinished while everyone else was fighting for their lives; Many mixed emotions surging forward from his small frame.

"Uhhhh… Fuck… Probably going to die… Cough but better to go out with a bang… Sorry Alistair…. Would like to spend more time with ya…

Sorry Salen, Vinsue, Hugo…, wished I could have gotten to know all of you more… Cough cough"


Realizing that blood was starting to come out of his throat, his life was drawing near to death’s door… The pain & agony that was inflicted onto his very body was causing most to fall into despair or merely fall to sleep in a sea of blackness, but he needed to see this all through… To the very end…
As his body begins to sink into the ground, offering no resistance as he could barely move his muscle and as his body was enveloped by the ground itself; the sense of tightness as if his body was being crushed caused the thief to scream louder as the pain was being coming too much to bear for most mortal beings.

What remained of his body was simply his head that sticks up like a sore thumb in this world of blacks, whites & grays and seeing Dahlia hobble her way over to his form muttering how much of a rat the Alistian thief; made the thief smile for it is true; He was simply a street rat in a huge world who had no purpose but to live but over time, his sense to survive started to change. His passion for cooking & thievery was something that he was proud of yet he couldn’t help but feel as if more could be done…

Jared felt that he didn’t leave enough of himself behind to make much of difference; Maybe if he was born into a different circumstance then he might been able to make more of himself, but fate seem to have his life placed now and though there was regret, the one thing that the thief didn’t regret was the life given from start to end.

Despite the hardship & suffering he had to go through; From not recalling who his parents were, the time where he was close to death’s door for stealing, being beaten up & initiated into Nightfall before being left to die on the gloomy rainy streets of Alistian & sitting alone in the dark with nothing more than a cracked lantern by the Alistian shore. This single life he had lived while fleeting was beautiful in all its chao.

“Bea… uty… fades… That is w… hy… it… is… beau…tiful…”

Before everything becomes black and the shadow of her figure looms over his form and the blur of the mallet that Dahlia was using as her makeshift crutch; Jared’s final moment of consciousness as too much blood & pain was forcing him to drift off to darkness. The thief would expel all of the contents of the Enshrouded Compass, using what remains of his fleeting thoughts to make the three whirling blades of Shadowrend as sharp as possible, reaching out fast to strike from Dahlia’s blind spot as the mallet is in mid-swing; All that was left was fate to decide who’s chapter ends & which author will be able to continue writing their story. Was it Dahlia, Jared or both? Would someone be there to save him if he did manage to land the final strike... It was all left to fate now…

word count: 1059
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Mimi Pidders
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Mon Jan 02, 2023 7:19 pm

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As Jared's heart slows, time seems to slow down, too. The mallet is getting inexorably closer to his head, but Dahlia's triumphant smirk turns to horror as the scythes erupt from their hiding place on the floor. Had she been more careful or more observant, she would have seen the umbralplasm easily -- it did not belong in a world of her own making, and it would have been the work of an instant to suss that out -- but to the end, Dahlia is who she is. Nothing less, and certainly nothing more.

Two of the scythes plunge into her: one through her right arm, the other into her hip. She falls forward, trying to lean on the mallet as she had to advance toward Jared, but it's already in motion, so this fails, and she pitches forward.

There's one more scythe, and this one has a more defensive purpose: it bisects the mallet's handle, severing Dahlia's ability to control the swing.

"Oh S H I"

The same lowered gravity that allowed Jared to soar through the greyplane applies to the mallet's head, and it sails in arc, whizzing through the thief's close-cropped hair as it hurtles into the sky behind him.


MISS

The cutoff oath form her last words that the thief hears. The Remnomancer gags and gasps before vomiting black-red blood onto the floor. As if in response, the floor itself begins to writhe and shift. It expels Jared, and the black and white squares vanish with the finality of an abstraction that had never been real to begin with. Everything is grey, writhing nothingness, as though what had been the world was blanketed in grey fog, except there was no source of light and there was no fog and there was no world. There was only Jared, and Dahlia, each barely breathing.

The Trial dissipates with the same abruptness with which Jared entered it. He is hurtling through they greyplane, and the last thing he sees before leaving it is Dahlia prone body as her constructed reality breaks apart, leaving her body floating in the grey nothingness.

His own body has the good fortune to land in a warm, dry place: a kitchen table in the house of a local shopkeeper. Fortunately, it had not yet been set. What happens next is up to him, but he has survived Dahlia's trial.

It is unclear what exactly happened to Dahlia, but one thing is for sure: she is no longer a threat.
word count: 445
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Arkash
Posts: 1058
Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2020 6:03 pm
Location: Imperial Badlands, Daravin
Character Sheet: viewtopic.php?f=43&t=745
Plot Notes: viewtopic.php?f=78&t=873
Character Secrets: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=760

Fri Jan 20, 2023 8:56 pm

Lore:
Persuasion: Playing into Enemy's Pride
Acting: Playing up injuries;
Bodybuilding: Tolerating crushing damage while on death's door;
Bodybuilding: Crawling under duress;
Meditation: Maintaining concentration while under duress;
Nightfall (Enshroud): Hiding Compass for a surprised attack;
Nightfall (Shadowrend): Creating really sharp blades;
Nightfall (Compass): Manipulating Umbralplasm under extreme pain;

Magic XP:
4 (Nightfall) Lots of use of some advanced abilities in this thread.

Mundane XP:
6

Mageblight:
+1
Per request.

Comments:
Honestly, I didn't read this. The plot was modded by an architect which is enough of a seal of approval for me. All the Dahlia shit makes me cringe and I'd rather not touch it with a ten-foot pole.
word count: 115
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