ZincAboutIt

Always a bridesmaid

@Voidus You’re too kind

I’m unauthorized to speak about any other god complexes

Sliding in here to echo 18th Shard. As it happens, The DA Departments of Counter Intelligence and Acquisitions are looking for talented new acolytes. If that’s not your speed, I can introduce you to our Head of R&D and you can chase that god complex all the way to the horizon

Lita listened as Laurelai spoke, wincing slightly as she mentioned being called “the Forgotten Daughter.” Guilt gnawed at her, coiling uncomfortably somewhere in her gut. Did I do this? If Lita had told Laurelai a year before in that ruined tavern, if she had told her who her father really was… would it have changed anything? She stood, going over to a side table and picking up the slender bayonet blade that had materialized in her hand. As though she could read Lita’s mind, Laurelai spoke again. "Yours seems a little more impressive." Laurelai said, nodding towards the blade. "A promotion and a better weapon. If I didn't know any better I'd swear he was playing favourites." Lita felt her hand tighten around her glass of port, and she knew that if she had been burning pewter it would have shattered. But of course, she wasn’t burning pewter. Not here, not in this life. She gave a little laugh; it tasted bitter on her tongue. His favorite. Lita hated how good that felt to hear, hated herself for that thrill of warm euphoria at the idea. She remembered that smile, so hungry and curious. The smile of a predator that had decided to play with its food for a while before devouring it. Lita loathed that smile, even as she longed to see it. She took a long drink of port - the finest money could buy. Surrounded as she was by finery, Lita had never felt more impoverished. ”The favorite pet gets the prettiest cage, I suppose,” she said, knocking back the rest of her glass and setting it down. She ran her finger along the edge of the bayonet, marveling at its sharpness. Her right palm still stung from where the blade had cut her. The handle was so small; it seemed almost designed to harm the weilder in addition to the victim. Always a price. “It doesn’t make sense that he’d help us escape those…things. Not if he designed them. What is the point?” How many times had she fought those horrid creatures, only to forget them afterwards? How many times had she clawed her way back to the truth, only for it to be stolen from her? Suddenly, gripped by a deep sense of hopeless rage, Lita took her beautiful crystal glass and hurled it against the nearest wall. It exploded into a hail of shards, the sound doing little to ease her fury. ”What,” she whispered, “is the rusting point?” @Voidus

Could there potentially be some kind of permanent affect on Voidus’s ability to control the Void post-Forgery? If that were the case, we could do some very interesting things with the void-sky in the Alleys beginning to “leak” out into the world. Also @Rushu42 you and the scholars guild could possibly follow the lead of Mac’s crooked accountant since Aln would have likely heard him talk about his tailor just like Laurelai did. Then they and Lita/Laurelai could be chasing the same lead and it could cause some fun times and interactions if you’re looking for somewhere to go after the hospital thread

So here is the thing: the DA doesn’t actually really care about the city. What they care about is the Alleys. If we are potentially going with the “limited Investiture plus Alleys collapsing” plan then it is possible that a separate group could in theory make some kind of deal with an entity in one of the remaining Alleys which would siphon off a rather large chunk of investiture and then get the DA’s attention (not in a good way though). It would also be a pretty nasty end for whoever is bargaining here. And we would likely want the entity in question to be RP’d by someone who isn’t in the other guild in question to keep things fun and interesting. That being said… I’d be happy to facilitate such a bargain for you. We offer very favorable terms such as [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] and of course you’ll understand that it would require the surrender of your [REDACTED] [REDACTED]. But I can assure you that our patronage is well worth the price. :3

What exactly do you want to accomplish by doing this? I’m curious because if there’s some kind of plot or storyline you want to run maybe there’s another way to do it that makes sense in world but also works for you :]

Lita felt her smile grow wider, even as her laughter ebbed away. Yes, she did know what Laurelai meant. Even with all the might of the Department of Counter Intelligence at her disposal, Lita had felt something missing. Something I didn't even know I had lost. As the elevator continued its ascent, Laurelai gave a small gesture and was instantly clean, her dress repaired, all signs of black ooze gone as though they'd never been. "Oh by all the Shards, I missed being able to do that. So how the Rusts have you been? You know, other than the crippling headaches, identity crisis and the universe collapsing around you." Lita wrinkled her nose and looked down at herself. Suddenly being the only one covered in muck made her feel twice as filthy. "I had forgotten how much I hate it when you do that." The light chime of the elevator accompanied its halt on the eleventh floor, and the golden doors slid open without a sound. Lita burned Tin and listened, catching ambient sounds on the floor but nothing nearby. Cautiously, she stepped out of the elevator and beckoned for Laurleai to follow. "As to your second question, best that we wait until we get somewhere more private." Though, Lita thought as they walked down the empty hallway towards one of the corner suites, is anywhere safe from those shadow things? A dozen emotions swirled within Lita as they walked past identical ivory doors with gold hardware. Relief at escaping, confusion as two sets of memories warred in her head, delight at having her friend returned to her. And below it all, simmering silently, was a deep anger. Later, she told herself. Rage later. Bath now. Lita reached her door and eventually managed to extract a sodden, greasy key from her skirt pocket, unlocking the door and stepping inside before slipping off her shoes. It would do no good to track black goop all over the lovely carpet. "I can't bear another moment covered in this muck," Lita said as she locked the door behind Laurelai and flicked on the lights, illuminating a spacious suite decorated in pale blues, whites, and golds. "The bar is in the sitting room. Help yourself to whatever while I take a shower. We can't all perform miraculous self-cleaning." After fifteen minutes of painstakingly scraping tarry ooze out of her hair, Lita emerged swathed in a fluffy dressing gown and poured herself a glass of port, settling down beside her friend. "So," Lita began, tapping the glass with her nail. "After those... things attacked us. Did you hear it? Did you hear the voice?" @Voidus

This era no, since no one in the wider city actually knows they exist in the first place. In other eras it would be incredibly difficult since each acolyte is given a loyalty spike meaning they are basically programmed to remain loyal to the DA. So realistically, no.

Spike-out memories if I recall

Hi all, just recommending you take any discussion of characters either to the Chat Thread or the Character Discussion Thread. We like to keep this space exclusively for submission and approval of characters. Thanks!

I just don’t see why someone wouldn’t take up the offer of delicious baked goods PLUS added benefits

Especially in this Era the CR might look wildly different. I’d be in favor of a very vague CR, pretty much totally shrouded in mist, or perhaps a kind of blasted landscape with that lovely boiling Void-sky that is visible in the Alleys? Just something really unsettling

Lita felt a singular moment of pure, untainted joy when she saw Laurelai - really saw her this time. Not a promising new acolyte, or an interesting conversationalist. She saw Laurelai. Her colleague. Her friend. Then, the writhing, glistening shadow before her let out a low, menacing hiss. Lita increased the burn of her Tin, watching for the moment when the thing would strike, gripping her silvery bayonet blade with far more confidence than she would have expected. No Pewter, she reminded herself, the two dissonant lives in her head warring for focus and blurring distinctions. This is no time to play Ascendant Warrior. "Laurelai," Lita called, her eyes still glued to the creature as it coiled inward, its jaw hanging low, ropes of black ooze dripping onto the floor. "On my mark, get out into the hallway!" The creature shot forward, unnervingly quick for a thing of its size, and Lita stepped to the side just in time to bring the edge of her blade across the neck of the worm, right below the disjointed jaw. As before, the metal passed through with disturbing ease. But this time, the vile shadow-stuff arced away from the weapon as the slick, tarred head of the worm dropped onto the rug with a sound that turned Lita's stomach. The body spasmed, sinking inward, and Lita took her chance. "Now!" She cried, darting past the headless worm and following Laurelai out into the Alley beyond her office. Barely thinking, Lita slid the Coin back into her pocket and grabbed Laurelai's hand, not even looking backward as she bent reality and began to Alleytravel. She took them to one of the more deserted Acquisitions Alleys first, still moving at a speed just below a run, then turned a corner and Alleytravelled again. Lita connected them to three more completely unrelated Alleys before linking them up somewhere in the R&D department. The cobbled ground was slightly sticky beneath her the soles of her shoes, and it was with some surprise that Lita realized she was still wearing her stilettos. "So, Department Head. Quite the promotion," Laurelai said, speaking for the first time since they started their flight, her voice somewhat strained from their run. "Seems to have been less painful than your last one." "You haven't seen my in-tray," Lita said, smiling despite the pounding of her heart. She flared her Tin, looking behind them for any signs of shadows behaving oddly. Rusts, this whole damned guild is full of odd shadows. They needed somewhere predictable, somewhere normal, to regroup and figure out what to do. "One more jump." Lita gripped Laurelai's hand tighter and wove a new path, taking them clear across the city into the very outer Alleys, where the sky was no longer a boiling Void but blue and clear and real. The two of them stumbled out onto a wide, clean thoroughfare directly opposite the polished facade of the Grand Hotel. They immediately began to garner looks, covered in black ichor as they were, Lita still clutching her ring bayonet as they fairly sprinted up the steps and into the lobby. The young man at the front desk stared at them, mouth slightly open, as they crossed the spacious entryway and blessedly caught the first elevator Lita called. The golden doors slid closed, and Lita pressed the button for the eleventh floor before leaning against the wall of the elevator and looking over at Laurelai. "Well, you look terrible." Lita grinned, then began to laugh. @Voidus

"I never break my promises." In that space between heartbeats, Lita heard a voice. It was a chill on the air, a breath on the back of her neck, cold despite the accompanying warmth in her left hand. Pain pierced her, that familiar phantom wound. She clung to it, grasping for that voice despite - or perhaps because - it terrified her. "He may have given you that promise, but I gave you that Coin. Do you remember, Little Lita? A small room, with tea in the kettle and a pale blue door? No, you don't really, though the fragments might be there. It was a lifetime ago." The image faded in and out of focus, a blurred evanotype. A young woman at a table, and a shadow at the door. Little Lita. A name that belonged to someone she knew. The darkness surrounding her made to brush it away. My name, Lita thought, and that thought was the smallest ember floating through a cavernous void. She was not alone in that darkness. Beyond her sight, a predator moved in the deepness, its voice like smoke. It twined about her, ephemeral, yet somehow it felt more real than anything in the world. "You told me you hungered for secrets. You were so hungry, so angry. And so I gave you a spoon to eat the world. A coin, to remind you of the first lesson every denizen of the Alleys knows. There is always..." "A Price." The ember caught, and Lita felt the world vibrate like a plucked string, humming a dischordant note. That voice continued, but Lita was caught up in its previous words. The image in her mind sharpened slightly, and the shade resolved itself into the shape of a stranger. A wild tangle of black hair, a white slice of teeth bright against brown skin, and a pair of mismatched eyes. The Steel, and the Void. Lita felt reality grow heavy and taught, a seesawing feeling that threatened to rip her apart - one force pulling her down, the other lifting her up. The shadows crawled across her skin. She could feel them twitching, reaching out towards her newest dissonant memories like rats swarming over rotted scraps. They were hungry. "You are once again faced with a choice, the two of you. You can have your heart's desires, and let these creatures grant you that blessed ambrosia of peace." Her heart's desires. Was this life truly what she wanted? It seemed perfect, a place as Department Head of Counter Intelligence, all the city at her disposal, and no one to answer to. Finally, a place of power that existed apart from someone using her. A chance to be the one holding all the cards. The shadows whispered all this into her ears as they crept across her thoughts, snuffing out the candles of her memories with clammy fingers. "Or you can face the darkness from which you're awakening, and claw your way into the bloody realm of truth. You can have your wishes, or you can have what you lost." What I've lost, Lita thought, barely daring to whisper her own thoughts in her head. She huddled there in a corner of her mind, eyes blinded, caught between terror and desire at that voice that paced in the dark. It would be so easy to let go, to drop the Coin and surrender. To awake as though nothing had happened. To live a perfect fiction, a beautiful cage built of everything she'd ever yearned for. It pulled at her like sleep pulls at the drowsy. It was a lullaby, a warm murmur and a soft bed. But is that what she wanted? Did she want her wishes granted like gifts she'd never earned? Placations in exchange for the theft of something far more precious - her life. Her real life. Her secrets and her sufferings. The blood on her hands and the blood on the cobbles of that alley in the storm, when a dark and pitiless god had killed the girl she was to birth the woman she could become. Are you satisfied, Little Lita. A whisper like a knife in the dark, a smile like a scythe blade. Or do you crave yet more? The precision of steel sliding between her ribs, pain so intense it may have been ecstasy. Tin and blood and rain on her tongue. The sharp crackle and ozone flare of lightning rending the sky. "Are you willing to pursue this path and the secrets that await you? What are you HUNGRY FOR?" Lita could feel it again, that static build as the world held its breath. A deep gasp before the plunge. Something brushed against the fingertips of her right hand, cold metal that beckoned her touch. The voice faded until it was barely a whisper. "You can reach out and seize the truth, or you can let go and let peace overtake you. There is always... A CHOICE." As the moment-between-moments ended, Lita flexed her fingers and grasped the metal. Anger flared within her, hot and bright, twinning with the pain in her palm as whatever she held sliced into her skin. She drew the blade over the front of her body, hoping to connect with the shadow and get it off her face. As the blade touched its skin, the creature recoiled, almost seeming to suck inward, wrenching its tendrils back into its center. Lita retched as the shadow pulled out of her throat, eyes watering when the low firelight of her office hit them. She rolled instinctively away, still coughing, and pushed herself up onto all fours, getting her first good look at the weapon in her hand. It was slender and razor sharp, about as long as her forearm, with a tiny ring handle at the end. It looked almost like a bayonet, and Lita shifted her hand downward, gripping the handle and leaving a smear of blood on the blade. As she stood, she wiped a trail of bile off the corner of her mouth, and gave the writhing shadow worm a jagged snarl. "Get the hell out of my office." @Fatebreaker @Voidus

This feels more like a meme than actual art so here you go

You know I actually don’t know. It depends on the public image that the DA wants to project next Era. If it’s more secrecy focused like this era, you’d probably work closely with the Intelligence and Acquisitions departments to keep our activities hidden and plant fake leads for various disappearances and other odd phenomena. If it’s another goal then you’d work to do that.

Hmm now this is an offer I can get behind.

Amen

We find that the best way to recruit is to build a compelling world and characters to RP with. That’s what drew me in anyway!

So actually, if people are offering cookies in the intro threads, we would like to know as we don’t actually encourage people to do this anymore. It annoys the mods and we don’t want to bother new people. Please do let us know if there are people trying to recruit to the AV this way because it’s not allowed or encouraged by the established RP community here.

I subsist off the hopes and dreams of others. Mmm mmmm good

Theoretically yes. If it were to be a plot point, we would probably want to clear it with the wider community and definitely the DA members first though

So, there isn’t really an entity that controls the Chapel. It’s sort of like a Shard pool, I guess, but without a Shard. It’s the pure manifestation of the boundless greed for knowledge and power that is so prevalent in the AV. The Chapel would exist more as a hazardous location than anything that could really be contracted with. Upon seeing it, a person is filled with the uncontrollable urge to step beneath the silent waterfall that falls from above. Once under the water, the person has near total knowledge and awareness of basically everything. It is incredibly addictive. Most people, if given a chance, would never leave and thus starve to death. If more then one person is there, they would inevitably kill one another to try to get beneath the water. If someone did leave the water, almost all of their knowledge would disappear, and they would be filled with an even greater urge to revisit the Chapel. It is a terrible addictive force. Most likely, if we were to use it in the plot, it would be a place where people go missing repeatedly. It effectively eats your mind and will for dinner.