the stewards (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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agentleooc2019-05-02 07:08 pm
thestewards) wrote in agentleooc2019-05-02 07:08 pm
tdm 05
you’re always biting back
You know the struggle's real
I lie down then you attack
► All TDM threads may be considered canon provided both parties agree and are accepted into the game.
► Canon threads may be redeemed for influence and reputation depending on how you solve the issue at hand or how you engage with the prompt. They also count toward AC.
► Feel free to switch up your character's Jewel from thread to thread. Get a feel for how a Birthright Jewel may limit or enhance your character's abilities.
► Canon threads may be redeemed for influence and reputation depending on how you solve the issue at hand or how you engage with the prompt. They also count toward AC.
► Feel free to switch up your character's Jewel from thread to thread. Get a feel for how a Birthright Jewel may limit or enhance your character's abilities.
THE WAREHOUSE JOB
Master Tinker Mari is in a tizzy. Last night, supplies from her personal warehouse in Wall Town went missing. And not just any supplies. These supplies were prototype items fashioned for a project she’s working on for Grand Master Niall.
Having left multiple messages on Draega’s far-caster network, she’s finally gotten you to help her. She asks you to investigate the warehouse and track down her missing supplies. By the way, don’t try to crack the boxes. They’re lined with lead to protect you from some of the dangerous, uh, stuff (as she says) inside.
At the warehouse, you find the lock on the back door has been picked. From the door, you can see that no windows look into the alley, so no one could have seen the culprit. Inside the warehouse, you discover a floor covered in a white powder, but none of it has been disturbed except where the door swung inward. On the floor, an area clean of powder reveals where the boxes once stood. They could not have been dragged out of the warehouse. If they had, the powder would have been disturbed. Near the back wall, hidden by shadow, you discover a little glob of silt. Someone tracked this in from the docks.
Landens and Blood worked together to steal these items, and you suspect mercenaries are responsible. Do you go to the docks to investigate, or do you turn this information over to the Guilds and let them deal with this problem on their own? No one would blame you for the latter: if landens and Blood are working together, there are certainly muters on the mercenary ship where Mari’s supplies have been taken. Dare you take matters of the law into your own hands?
WILD WILD MEN
It’s nearly dusk. Pink and blue rays from the sun pierce a haze of sand on the horizon, obscuring the sunset and painting the sky with pastels. The world seems blurry and depth becomes an illusion. You know to be wary: this is the time when the wildmen come out of the hills to the south and west of Draega.
You’re standing guard at a farm where the spring planting is just mature enough that it could be pulled in. This is a dangerous time for the farmers. They can’t defend themselves against the wildmen that raid their fields, and there aren’t enough guards from the Queen’s First Circle to protect everyone.
A scream comes from the hills. It echoes through the still, night air. Wildmen dressed in rags and furs appear on the plains before you, their sight shields dropping. None of them wear a Jewel darker than Summer-sky, but they are all wild-eyed with rage and hunger. Subdue them however you can, but be sure to protect the fields at your back.
SPRING CLEANING
After the madness of the Black Widow coven invading Draega, Lady Fayura has asked Strangers to help weave cleansing webs. Just as there are webs that ensnare and damage the mind, there are webs that heal them, too.
She invites Strangers who have left the Residence to come spend the morning in her private garden, where she teaches them how to weave cleansing webs. These are simpler webs, built like spirals that trap oppressive psychic energy and purifies the air, removing those dark feelings. As she teaches you, she explains that the landens and slums were hit the hardest by the coven’s attack and that the most psychic damage was done in the slums and the area around the Guilds.
You could, she suggests, leave your cleansing webs there, but if you do, you can expect resistance. Strangers wear Jewels, and they will be viewed with distrust and wariness in the slums especially. The Guilds, she says, insist they can take care of their own, but this kind of psychic damage requires a web to help repair it.
The Blood in River East clamor for cleansing webs. Once, there were many more Black Widows, but that caste was nearly wiped out in the Cataclysm. There are few Black Widows among the Blood in River East who can do what Fayura teaches the Strangers, and the Blood are particularly susceptible to lingering psychic malevolence. If the effects of the webs aren’t removed, the Blood will twist and become even more dangerous than they already are. At least they won’t try to chase the Strangers out of River East.
But who you help is up to you. The choice is yours, Stranger.
AIR TIME
Whether you catch the news on a Far-caster in the city or you're spinning the dial on your own device, you'll hear…
etiquette with evandra and aren
[Evandra's voice is a little bit rough and a little bit husky, the kind of voice that gives bad ideas to young men and headaches to fathers.] I admit: I'm a bit confused. Can anyone learn how to be a Black Widow?
[Aren's boyish voice is cheerful and amused.] Anyone can learn how to weave a tangled web. Indeed, Healers weave webs to make their healing more effective. Even though you can learn the Craft, that will never make you a Black Widow. You won't spontaneously manifest a snake tooth, for example!
[Evandra:] Well, that's a relief! We certainly don't need more chance encounters that leave us poisoned!
[Aren:] Quite so, Evandra! And recovering from a Black Widow's venom is a grueling process. There are few things more deadly.
[Evandra:] Let's take a minute to discuss antivenin and how our listeners can brew their own at home.
the weather
[A soft-spoken man’s voice rumbles out of the Far-caster. He’s pleasant to listen to, with a soothing cadence to his voice.] …plenty of sun over the next few days. It's the perfect time for taking in the spring harvest. With all this sun, consider purchasing Sun Shield, a new cream produced by the Medico and Crafter Guilds to protect your skin from…
the news
[The man speaks at a brisk pace, hurried and harried as though he has too much to say and not enough time to say it.] News from the Queen's Court suggests that we'll soon know who attacked the city two weeks ago.
[Another man, nasally in tone. He doesn’t sound rushed so much as put upon.] That’s right, Garret. The Strangers have been investigating the Black Widow coven responsible for breaking a young witch and placing malicious tangled webs throughout the city.
[Garret:] A handful of suspects are being held in the Queen's Residence as deliberations take place. The Strangers…
spring cleaning.
I imagine you can't really decide where to leave a... [ A brief pause-- he doesn't know what to call it. ] A feeling. Or whatever this is supposed to be.
no subject
[ look. look. lara's got no idea what she's doing, either, but sass comes naturally and it's a good way to not show just how out of her depth she feels. this is magic; that sort of thing shouldn't be possible at all and yet here they are. ]
I meant which part of the city. I think I'm going to the slums.
[ where they've just been told people will mistrust them, but need their help the most. ]
no subject
If you wanted to give comfort to the people in the slums, perhaps you ought to be making your webs there.
[ He makes one stupid, shaky curve, but the spiral stays more or less stable-- stable enough for him to let it go, the tips of his fingers sparking green after. Lara ought to be feeling the calm and ease that the web gives after; Jaime may not know what he's doing, per se, but his Jewel certainly makes up for it. ]
no subject
[ nearly everyone is in pain - but to hear it explained, some are in more pain than others. ]
And yeah, I will. [ as soon as she's perfected how to do it, or at least gotten better at it. for a moment, she just watches him finish his web instead of working on her own, mouth opening briefly as his fingers spark green, as she can feel a sense of calm wash over her.
she can't quite wrap her mind around all of this, but at least it's something to do. ]
Are you just going to stay here in the garden, then?
no subject
[ He looks at the sparks at his fingers; he doesn't feel it in the way one feels objects, but there's a definite push of something. Jaime shakes his left hand out, the corner of his eye twitching slightly when a few shakes gets the lights to disappear. ]
I just doubt it's a good idea to create... "feeling" webs when you don't feel particularly confident about them.
no subject
[ lara doesn't specify what she's agreeing to and that's a deliberate choice, even if the way her shoulder slump a little for a moment tells a story in and of itself. she swore an oath, too. she isn't sure about any of this, either. ]
If you'd asked me two days ago, I'd have said magic doesn't exist.
no subject
I miss when I thought magic wasn't real.
[ He clenches his fingers into a fist, then unfurls them all slowly. Then he lifts his hands up-- the flesh one, the unmoving golden one-- and moves his fingers in awkward, trembling strokes to make the beginning of another curve in the air. ]
Of course, I never imagined I'd be doing it, [ he grumbles, and with his frown the spiral shivers ] but it's not... all it's cracked up to be in the stories, is it?
no subject
[ and there's some truth in the stories and myths - but there's also a scientific explanation, even if it may not be one the people who first told the stories understood or were aware of. ]
So yours has magic? Really?
[ the existence of a multiverse isn't so strange to her. she's read some of the more popular books on quantum physics, on multiverse theory, on the state of the art of physics and what is known and theorised about the universe. call it curiosity.
but magic?
she'd have thought the laws of physics would apply the same in all possible worlds. maybe she was wrong about that. maybe it's still true and what is magic here or in his world has scientific explanations, too, that simply go beyond what they know and understand (yet).
he draws another curve; the spiral shivers - and lara lets her hands move again, too, working on a spiral. perhaps it'll help with his frown. ]
I'll be honest, I've no idea what to make of it yet. This seems useful, at least.
no subject
They're good intentions. Lara's better at this than him, probably, but Jaime has never really been good at gentle and subtle and care. Her spiral grows bigger than his, and Jaime isn't surprised, but he sure is grateful that the feeling extends towards him-- makes it easier to weave his own web, shaking less now that his mind isn't quite so tremulous. ]
I don't know a lot about the magic in Westeros, [ home ] except that I thought it was extinct. But is there really a goodness to it when this magic's the reason the people of this kingdom hate each other so much?
[ Jaime clicks his tongue. ] Makes you wonder.
no subject
It's a tool, right? Any tool can be used for good ends or abused.
[ this can be used to entangle people's minds, to cause damage, or it can be used to detangle them, to undo that damage. at least that's what she's come to understand - but whether he means to make it or not, he has a point: she doesn't really understand any of what's going on here.
maybe she ought to be careful what she leaves where. whom she trusts. (that should be easy enough. she's used to not trusting anyone entirely, not with what really matters.) ]
no subject
[ Jaime was raised as a have, however, and not a have-not. And now, with the magic at his fingertips (quite literally, if his forming of this web is any indication), even in this strange world he's still found himself a place among the highborn. He doesn't know what it's like to be hammerless, magicless. He does his best not to fall prey to silly things like empathy, either. ]
Does magic truly make a person better than another? I doubt it.
All it's done is given me more things to study. [ He makes a rolling motion with his wrist, making the narrower tail end of his spiral. ] And I've never been good at tutoring.
no subject
It's not that strange.