Spoiler: Matt, roadkill "Alright sweetheart, you stay here and don't make a sound" He opened the door and peered inside. Stillness, and no trace of a black puffball of a cat. Good. He did kinda feel like he was cheating on her, bringing home another cat, but were you to do if you got out of the cab home and found that someone's dead Abessinian had followed you home? He couldn't exactly leave the poor thing, since any idiot who let a cat out in London clearly wasn't responsible enough to have a cat to begin with. Evidenced by the fact that the one now sitting at his feet looking more than a little mangled. One hindleg was broken enough that the bone showed through the skin, blood matted much of the fur on one side, the tail was missing the last two inches or so and from the way the little thing held its head he was fairly sure that what had actually done it was done brain damage. In short: a traffic casualty if there ever was one. Still, it had followed him home, he couldn't just leave it. First it was a cat and what kind of person would he have to be to leave a cat? Even a currently undead one? And second, it was his fault it had gotten up again to begin with, coming out of a knife party, running just a little high on the magic. He bent down and picked the cat up, careful not to wobbly the broken bits too badly, even if it currently couldn't feel pain, and carried it inside. Nuzzling the top of its head and petting along the side came naturally, and even with the broken ribs he could feel through the fur, he was rewarded with a raspy, stuttering pur. "Yeah, you're a good boy aren't you? We'll get you fixed right up." First, into the bathroom to rinse out all the gore and grime. It made the damage more obvious, but at least now the cat was looking better. Well, it looked like a wet little zombie cat, and complained like any cat forced to bathe, but at least it was clean. Next he took it outside to the little pond tucked away in the back corner of his garden and started to carefully ladle some of its water over he cat - which was of course met with more complaints, as you do when you're a cat getting bathed for the second time in an hour. But it was necessary, the power caught in the water settling into the fur and seeping into the bones. The dented ribcage popped back into place, skin rippled over bare bones and muscle, even the missing inches of tail slowly reformed themselves as he worked, fingers testing over every spots to make sure he missed nothing. In the end, the cat sat there pristine as possible, and only the cold body and faint glow in the depths of its eyes gave away that this wasn't just a normal cat. Not anymore. "Well, what do I do with you now? Can't keep you, Mod would have a fit, and can't put you up for adoption either." He scritched between the perky little ears, and the purr he got now sounded smooth as silk. "Hmmm. You know what, I got an idea. I know just the person" He scooped the cat up. It was time for a trip to the British Museum's cellar. There was a priestess down there who kept complaining that the mice tried to eat her offering. And her toes.
Spoiler: Mod protecting Matt She was on the hunt, on the prowl. Her human was out, doing what humans did when they were done feeding and petting you and left, so there was nobody here to protect their home, nobody but her. Of course, she was plenty. The first sweep of the perimeter had been clean. Oh there had been mice, but mice where no danger, just food. She'd caught one of them...three or four time. Where was the fun in only doing it once? But otherwise it had been calm. Now she was on her second round, two large bounds taking her up the wall of the back garden. She daintily avoided the runes etched into the top of the bricks as she went, ears swiveling to catch any sound. But it was a little movement at the edge of her vision, where things got foggy and glowy, that made her stop and crouch down. It was in the next garden over, not part of their Home but part of her territory all the same, and there would be no intruders tolerated. She leaped off the wall and into an apple tree to get a better look. The thing was small, and grey, and glittered with the old fire-light of hostile magic. It even smelled wrong, nothing like the soothing scent of decay and freshly dug graves, not even the one of winter and frozen blood that her humans sometimes carried when he had done dangerous things without her help, fool that he was. No, this smelled like someone had opened a sewer and poured every perfume known to catkind in there, catnip over sewage and cheap food. She sneezed and shook her head to get rid of it, and only then crept closer. The branch of the tree was more than able to hold her up until she was right away the thing. It was shaped like a human, but only vaguely, like a rough clay doll, except made from molten glass. It was digging its way past of the first cobweb layer of their wards, like a dog determined to get at the mouse but too stupid to know that you had to wait at the second opening once you'd chased it in. It was a threat. Threats to her home, to her human, could not stand. She would not let them. She felt out of the tree with only the barest ruffling of leaves, giving the thing no warning before she was upon it, claws raking down the molten-glass skin and tearing it open, teeth digging deep into the back of the neck. It tasted as bad as it had smelled but she hung on, even as it sprung up and started to whirl around, screeching in a way that made her ears hurt and dropped a few nearby butterflies dead into a flowerbed. This was her home. She would protect it. The claws on her backpaws tore more of its glowing matter loose, digging deeper, ever deeper, until they came into contact with something hot and vile. Her entire body sparked with magic, ice shooting into the core of the thing. It fell down immediately but she did not stop, teeth and claws digging deeper, holding on harder as more ice flew from her into it, cooling the molten glass down to something less flexible, until it stopped twitching. She shook it one last time, tearing her claws from the now solid, cold thing, and that was enough. It came apart like a soap bubble, leaving nothing but glassy shards melting into the flowerbed. The terrible scent faded. Good. She sniffed around to make sure that nothing remained and only then scaled up her garden wall again. Her human wasn't home yet. Her duties remained.
Spoiler: Matt, Competition, cw death Fuck this. Fuck this entire everything with a giant chainsaw. Especially fuck this asshole who thought they could roll into his (HIS!!) city and set up camp right in the fucking middle of it. He was standing in front of it right now and honestly? Frankly? It was a freaking houseboat on the Thames and he was fighting down the urge to sink it right where he stood. There were enough bodies underneath the river to call up and punch a hole through the hull and drag it down, and the longer he stood there, feeling the presence of another necromancer tug on his senses, the stronger siren song of this image became. He shook his head. No time for that now, not when he had something to do that wouldn't escalate this into a fullblown hedge war. Ideally. Even if it did, he was pretty damn sure he could win, even if every step of the way was drenched in his own blood. But it'd be messy and he could do without the attention. He could feel the power of the wards like layers of cobwebs against his skin and catching in his hair like fingers, feeling oddly dry and dusty, more of a dry old attic than the waterlogged mud and creaking ice of his own. He brushed them off with the softest touch of magic, letting them part around him instead of simply tearing them. This was to be a subtle visit, after all. A warning, not a declaration of war. Not yet. He stopped in front of the door and shoved the letter into the letterbox. Every mage would know the method. Every Necromancer should know the warning. You know who you are. You know who I am too, or at least what I am. This is my city and I will not suffer you here. London isn't free for taking, if you want it you'll have to go through me and stronger ones have tried. They left or they're staying with me now. Make the smart choice and don't push this. -M The envelope was reeking of his own magic, edges stained with water and garden dirt far more effectively than any signature could. If the other necro wanted a fight they would reply in kind, but with the sheer amount of magic worked into the envelope alone, they'd be stupid to try, and this was only the first layer. The letter itself was written in ground up blood, little tendrils of it spiderwebbing into the paper to form runes. Subtle threats, the touch of ice down the other mages back, like someone dancing on their grave, ghost voice drifting around them. Nothing a necromancer couldn't easily dismiss but the point was to show that he could do this. It seemed the other mage wasn't that smart. A day later he had a very similar note in his own letterbox, written on bonedry paper that crumbled at the edges and ink that flaked off and smelled like woodash and dust. I don't care who you are and who you think I am. My city now. You have two days to leave before I come and raze your quaint little garden to the ground and turn your familiar into a new hat. -P Well, if the other wanted to play like that. They could have that. The same night he was back at their house boat, bone knife solid and cold like liquid nitrogen against his thigh. He could tell the wards had been beefed up, but he knew their shape now and regardless, he didn't plan to get that close. No, he just stood there, barely outside of the reach of the water and sat down on the wall that led down into the river, pulled out the knife and opened his palm with a long, sure cut. Blood gathered in his cupped hand for a moment, long enough to let him breath words over it - come to me, rise, follow me, be mine mine mine - before it dripped down into the water. He could feel it sink all the way to the bottom and and through it, like iron finding its way to the magnet until it touched the first bone, and then another and another until he could feel half a dozen tied to him and he was still feeding blood into the river, opening the cut again as often as it closed. Underneath the river they started to move, dig out through the earth to follow his call, the breathed out 'come to me, rise rise' that he was still whispering over the blood. Soon they were in the water and he could see the surface rippling. But the magic itself was barely to be felt. Working magic through running water was hard, which would normally have made the house boat such a good defense, but of course, most mages didn't have his resources to draw upon. Even most necromancers couldn't brag to feel the ever-shifting landscape of death of a whole city to feed them. Tonight he drew on that, making himself the well that it all flowed into. He catch up little snatches of specific death - flatline in a hospital, shivering in and out of his grasp as the doctors rushed in, traffic crash on the other side with no seat belt on - and the sheer press of many many more closing around him. He had to open the channel wider, take more of it just to stand the pressure and feed it all down into the river. The blood flowed constantly now, his hand laid around the blade of his knife and squeezing. And still more came out of the mud, older and older bodies that stood underneath the surface, eyeless faces turned to him. Waited for an order. Well, he'd given the other mage a warning. If they were quick they could still make it out, he wouldn't stop them from fleeing. So he gave the order. 'Take it down' He breathed out a puff of fog, the air in his lungs a sweet frozen pain. The water rippled again stronger and then the house boat surged and shuddered, two dozen corpses dragging themselves up to it and digging into the hull. The wards didn't catch them because you couldn't ward running water. And once the hull was breached.... most magic wasn't designed to stand up to the rush of river water. His own wasn't, he could just afford to feed it. The city was dying around him. It was living too, but it was the dying that counted, from the sewer rats to the emergency rooms, pouring through him as he made himself the funnel, strung his own control out over all those bodies. He could feel his own fingers tear out bolts and beat in glass as the boat started to list. He could hear the mage inside cry out and reach for magic they couldn't get at because his own was in the way, the maelstrom of death just outside the wards pulling everything with it. The boat went down in less than five minutes. The mage never left it. Bubbles came up, and he felt the mage die, a flicker and burst of magic, unaimed and desperate only feeding into his own supplies in the end. He let the horde below go with soft words again. 'Thank you, sleep well'. It was his city, and he wouldn't share.
y'know what I think I'll keep the prompt thing an open offer because it's hella fun to and I'm usually bad at finding topics for myself to write about so like... UP YOURS BRAINI BEAT YOU
Dnd chronicales continue because I got time and my brain wants to rite but refuses to vomit up a topic. So DnD adventures. Spoiler: first librarian mission(s) For this mission, we split the party. Our brawly ones (Rahona and Yuka) went to investigate an underground fighting ring. Think Wrestling but more people get knocked out for real. They're send there by recieving a message via bird (a tiny sparrow that actually is spelled to tell them the message and wear a tiny messenger hat. DR is ridiculous and our DM like REALLY knows his audience). Anyhow, brawly party is send to investigate the underground fighting ring because a 'silver weapon' is being smuggled through there. They're supposed to get in, get comfy with the people and try to extract some info. And they do! They also get into a cage match, bet and on themselves and make mad bank against a dwarf paladin and... an half-orc fighter. They win and as they get themselves patched up in the aftermath by the First Aid Monk, they get the info they needed (weapon has been passed through and is likely on its way out of the city). They also meet the owner of said fighting operation, and Yuka falls head over heels for him. It's mutual. As said, our DM really knows his target audience so Yuka now is in a whirlwind romance with one Mr.Starling, local weapons manufacturer and rich guy party has acquired sugar daddy? Meanwhile the less brawly half of the party (Petric and Sella) receive message sparrows of their own. We're send to a house of the library, where we meet Apostate (tiefling) and Apostel (Asimaar) and they tell us that our job is to find a powerful staff that a local smuggler of antiquities has in his possession. We're to get the staff within 24h, lest it be moved, and our reward is 'everything we can carry out there'. We get plans of the house and some general info. So we set off for some prep work. First buy a spring-loaded grappling hook, then we stake out the place. Since Sella has an owl familiar, we can get a good look at the security. We also pick up on the fact that there'll be a party happening there this evening. So fast forward to the evening. We sneak around to the back of the estate, time out the guard rounds to grapple the wall, scale it get over, and get through the door into the servants hallways. Once inside, Sella casts invisibility on herself and well, Petric's got that sweet sweet +10 stealth anyways, so off we go. The servants are all busy on the party that we can hear through the wall. Sella trips but through some miracle (the miracle is that our DM has shitty dice luck) none of the people inside notice, and we can progress up to the private floor where we suspect all the goodies are hidden without being noticed. Once there we start being methodical and still quite, and maybe already loot a little when it comes to some of the smaller items we can easily carry. coins, jewelry, the like. In the process, Sella finds a key. We find the door to the study and get a really lucky nat 20 on investigation that lets us see the alarm/explosion runes inlaid in the door. Sella counterspells them and we're in. The study looks innocent enough, but more looting and the key reveal another key and a hidden door behind a bookshelf. jackpooot. That is indeed where our target keeps all his fancy shit. At the back stand three chests and Petric goes right to investigate them, except one of them starts moving. Both him and Sella have an 'oh shit' moment, except Sella recognizes the chest. It's a friendly mimic of holding (think a bag of holding, except with considerably improved mobility and self-defense). One high roll in animal handling later, the mimic likes us better than its erstwhile owner so naturally we start feeding it everything that will fit in. Spellbooks, statues, anything magic that we can get our mits on (like a tankard spelled to supply you with either dwarven ale, wine or moonshine. if the party ever needs someone wasted, we're set) and of course all the jewelry and bling we can grab. We also find a display box containing an obsidian dagger shaped like an owl and reeking of magic, and a long bundle that turns out to contain our staff. It's a people-sized piece of driftwood with an absolutely MASSIVE pearl set in the end, and covered in runes. Everything goes into the mimic, which has been dubbed Luggage because hey, let's be nerds for real. Then it's time for the graceful exit. We close the safe up again, then Sella decides to be mean and feeds Luggage both keys so that the thing will be hard to open. Petric carries luggage and now e gotta get out. Now since Petric's gained minor illusion from their brush with the FM, the exit strategy is thus: ready grapply to descent. Then work together to create and illusion of a robber-dwarf, completely with sack with dollar symbol on it, running through the garden and past the guards, cackling loudly. Sella covers the sounds, Petric takes the appearance and the guards are VERY distracted. We rappel down between two windows, acrobatics check back over the wall and are out and then just wander back to the library house. Nobody knows we went in, nobody knows we went out. (the next day our DM supplied us with a newspaper article about a 'dastardly dwarf robbing esteemed citizen and vanishing with the goods, the public is asked for help') Back at the house we are congratulated on our stint (also it's confirmed that Apostate and Apostel are Huge Lesbians like we suspected all along) and take the staff. Sella sets about to Identify our loot. We got a lot of good shit, Sella now has more spellbooks than she can shake a stick at, we're filthy rich in jewely and gold, and the dagger is one of a set of bird themed ones. This one is called 'Nightbird' and either gives darkvision, or if you already have it, extends it by 30 feet. So Petric now has 150 feet darkvision aka 'right up to where his shortbow starts getting disadvantage' plus he can now throw things at max range without penalty at night. and most importantly We Got Luggage, solving our carrying capacity problems, with the bonus of being able to chomp down on thiefs. Petric likes it a lot and spends the rest of the night petting it and getting slobbered on in return And that was our first mission! Next up: follow the silver weapon.
Also hey because I can: darkTimeline!Matt is very much this song when he feels like seduction will get him what he wants sooner than outright murder
Right! so! Ramble on Matt and sex magic Spoiler: sexe Because he can actually do that, use sex to fuel a ritual to do something. It only works for specific spells (like, he can't curse that way, or do the really big things) but it essentially works because 1) he's got direct access to someone else, seeing how close you end up to people who have sex with 2) it works by 'sacrificing' the act, sorta. Magic in his verse often has components of ritual and symbol. Spilling blood works in part because a wound is a symbol for dying, a tiny death. By the same metric, sex - virtually any kinda of sex - work as a symbol for a hypothetical life because sex is how humans reproduce. So what he's doing is essentially offering that hypothetical-theoretical life instead of actually killing anything. The fact that he's sterile (necromancers of his level usually are, or have an incredibly hard time getting children even with more repro medicine) actually helps there because sex is always gonna be a dead end with him. And he likes getting hurt, so that usually helps it along and makes it easier for him because then we're already halfway into his usual mainstay of 'blood for magic'. And usually he doesn't use this often, because gathering up and using the energy gotten that way isn't something that comes naturally to him, and most people get a bit weird about fucking on a large rune circle with strange incense smoldering in a corner of the room and stranger candles.
comes running into your thread full speed, crashes into a wall i heard this and it has big matt energy imo so i must share it with you Spoiler: lyrics Well, boys, they're biting at our heels Just like a zombie would I think it's time for the show We'll breathe new life into the dead Via a beat, a couple words, and a message to send And so places, places Light the stage and Open up the doors and let 'em in Cause it's infectious, a contagion And it's taking on the nation The kind of melody you can't ignore So all you gentlemen and ladies Tired of pushing daisies Won't you rise and join the ranks of our undead Oh, woah-oh, oh, oh And if you're feeling six feet Underneath the beat and the sorrow Enough to borrow But I could give two shits if the Apocalypse was tomorrow We're all okay And so places, places Light the stage and Open up the doors and let 'em in Cause it's infectious, a contagion And it's taking on the nation The kind of melody you can't ignore So all you gentlemen and ladies Tired of pushing daisies Won't you rise and join the ranks of our undead Oh, woah-oh, oh, oh Our hearts are grown Just a little bit colder When we don't have Somebody's shoulder To lean on, all we want Is to be loved So get up and move Cause it's infectious, a contagion And it's taking on the nation The kind of melody you can't ignore So all you gentlemen and ladies Tired of pushing daisies Won't you rise and join the ranks of our undead
DnD write up, next one: Spoiler: first real big real important mission! So after the split-team missions we report back to the Archivist, who's very pleased and uses our info to find out more stuff. We use the time to get some new gear. Rahona intimidates the fuck out of a local jeweler so that we can sell him all the gems we nicked from the black market trader, Yuka finds a shop called 'Leather Daddy's' that does both armour and BDSM gear and we get a carrying harness for Luggage fashioned there, the works. We're like kinda very rich now after our two little stints. Archivist calls us back, apparently the new info is that the 'silver weapon' is on an airship called the Lynbaker and he's arranged for us to be hired onto the ship as protection against air pirates. (note: an airship is literally a normal ship but suspended under a magical balloon) So we go and the Lynbaker is a pretty nice ship, our captain is a dwarf and all the other crew are three kenku. Toucan kenku (furthermore: toukenku) who are... not very bright but hey. They're nice enough. Rahona proceeds to start teaching them all deinosaur swears while Yuka is teaching them crab-yoga. We also have a ship's cat tresym named William. Petric is kinda busy learning how to read/write his the little brainworm that's piloting this dead elf did preserve his muscle memory and dexterity but not so much his literacy. On the plus side, hs hand writing his surprisingly gorgeous. So we're on the ship, leaving DR and for a while it's character fun but about a day outside of the city limits: PIRATES. Everyone mans the deck, that is, everyone who an fight, so the toukenku are shuffled underdeck where they're less likely to get shot. Attempting to destroy the pirate ship's balloon fails, but does leave it damaged, so eventually it will sink. Eventually. The pirates catch up and put over gangways to cross. CUE RAHONA. She's a druid. She'd a druid who specializes in thunder/lightning spells. We're in the sky. She uses Call Lightning and proceeds to just... got to town while Yuka and petric ensure that nobody crosses over, and Sella covers the people who are covered from the lightning by ship parts. It's going pretty swell, we got the pirates mostly bottlenecked, but there's a fuckton of them. Cue another thunderstrike and a unit of araacokra warrior ladies (named the Thunderbolts, because my DM is a planes nerd and will do fanservice for all of us and himself) crash down on the pirate ship and proceed to wipe out more pirates. Turns out our captain hired them to meet us partway and the pirates caught us a trifle early. The pirate captain and his mage SIC do kinda panic and call someone up from below decks of their ship. Turns out to be a fuckoff large 7 ft warforged with a sword... well like the one Cloud's using in FF7, scale-wise. All of us quietly go 'oh fuck'. The warforged comes across the plank and Petric and Yuka get in to engage. Except when the first strike connects both of us are hit by some sort of vision. We see ourselves, with blazing violet pentagon-halos, as divine messengers. Thee hits connects but the warforged doesn't attack or try to defend himself, just... stands there, looking at us. so hey, warforged LORGE not currently in a problem, time to focus on enemy-mage and pirate captain. Both are quickly dealt with, and now e focus back on the warforged. We work out quickly that he can't talk, so Rahona starts playing twenty questions with 'lift your arm once for yes, twice for no' and that's how we find out his name is MarkIV (Mark Four) or at least that's what he considers his name. We adopt MarkIV on the spot. We leave Rahona to work the details out, Sella and Petric go loot the pirate ship. We get a bunch more gems and gold, some expensive wine, and very important: a young tresym that Sella immediately adopts and calls Daisy. We make it back to the ship, cut the damaged pirate ship loose and watch it Drift off while we continue on our route towards the Oasis City (OC aka Fantasy!Reno) with our new crew mates. The aaracokra ladies also join us on the ship as mercenary support until we've reached out destination. Next time: BIG REVEAL; THINGS MORE COMPLICATED THAN EXPECTED
Brought Krapfen (german ball donut) to work because 'tis the season for it and the bakery had like ten kinds? Ended up bzying rosehip jam, apricot jam, strawb cream, blueb cream, nugat (straight up nutella filling) Bienenstich (Kind of cake) and vanilla custard and made a bunch of very happy coworkers Also got enough left to have the blueb cream for breakfast after today's oncall.
@Acey hey so we were talking bathbombs last time and now i've tried the Goddess one and it seems one for you: Sparkly, powder purple water, smells lovely
