𝐑 𝐄 𝐕 𝐄 𝐑 𝐈 𝐄 𝐒 [closed - pm if still interested]

One tree, one land, united by the same demand
Pool of water, pool of life, pool of deep and soulless strife
Doorways six shall be your guide, unlocked by what lies inside
Land of ice, land of snow, in hot waters the way does grow.

-Ancient Rhyme

My gallery · by **Stargazer3000** » Mon Jan 24, 2022 11:48 am

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location the royal keep
mentioned other shifters
tagged none

The wind was howling outside the high walls of the Crown’s Keep, battering the immaculately carved buildings and painted facades of the highest ring in the Wooden City. All around the Keep the city stretched and twisted, curling walkways and towering structures that looked like a wooden canyon, treacherous and swaying in the battering storm. No one could escape the chilling force, least of all the man marching through the courtyard at the heart of the Crown’s Keep - Vas’ fingers clenched as he fought the urge to bat down his cape that was snapping side to side as though caught in a child’s game. Vas never did like children.

It had been a week since he’d arrived in the Wooden City, one of the last to respond to the call. Vas had been busy in the far north, helping a lost party return to civilization from the feet of the Winter Wastes; a difficult task under normal conditions, but made unbearable both by the unrelenting storm and the clueless travelers - in truth he wasn’t sure which one was worse. Regardless, arrive he had, but instead of receiving his demands and being sent on his way - as had been the method of crown over the last few years - Vas was instead met with a quest of the utmost importance; to find an end to the winter storm that had been plaguing the Land of the Shifters.

It was thus that he’d found himself - and the other shifters who’d been called upon - forced into a residence in the innermost circle of the towering metropolis, the Crown’s Keep serving as their base as they searched for a way to reach the lower levels of the city, all with the hope of locating the first doorway to the ancient pool - based on the ancient rhyme the rumored hot springs buried beneath the Wooden City was their best place to look. Settling on the Royal Catacombs as their access point had been easy, but getting permission to traverse them had been anything but, the approval as slow-moving as water running uphill - unsurprising based on both the religious significance of the catacombs, and the dark rumors of monsters and demons that lurked in their depths.

But these rumors were nothing to Vas; he’d killed monsters before, he’d felt the things of nightmares tear beneath his teeth, he’d felt horrors slashed to ribbons by his claws, so the week leading to the approval was filled not with grim anticipation, but a tense irritation, an itch brought on by being indoors for far to long.

Slow or not the approval had come, and within the hour the group departed their residence, the frigid air a balm to the bear’s increasing discomfort. The group was now trailing behind a mousey, quaking man - supposedly an advisor to the king - who led them to the towering building that served as the Crown Keep’s place of prayer, and as the entrance to the Royal Catacombs. Domed like a mushroom, it’s normally vividly painted facades were hidden in the swirl of the unrelenting storm clouds, the creak of its intricately carved wooden doors the only betrayal of the structure’s true age. The inside was barely warmer than the frigid winter winds, and Vas’s breath hung suspended in the air as the group made their way inside the hushed halls.

Trailing by a few crouched figures murmuring prayers - maybe for the end of the snow, maybe for more pearls, maybe for a good harvest - little difference it makes, Vas thought bitterly - the group traveled beneath the candle lit ceiling arched high enough to make the eyes see demons in the dancing shadows, until at last they arrived at a gated section. The advisor’s hands trembled as he drew fourth a keyring from his ornately embroidered jacket sleeve, the quaking of his fingers causing the keys to jingle like tiny silver bells, a harsh juxtaposition in the otherwise thick silence of the hallowed grounds. The gate of the catacombs was silent as he unlocked it, swinging open with nothing but a slight woosh of shifting air - for a moment Vas wondered if it would have been better if it squeaked, if it would make the whole thing feel less like some horrible fairytale told the children in the deep dark nights of winter. “I wish you all the best of luck”, the advisor squeaked while dipping into a deep bow, stepping aside from the opening maw of the dark entrance to the catacombs.

My gallery · by **Stargazer3000** » Mon Jan 24, 2022 11:50 am

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location the outskirts of the wooden city
mentioned other elementals
tagged none

A flame cut through the unrelenting storm, the warmth of its rays starkly contrasted against winds ferocious enough to make the snow seem to fall horizontally. The heat it gave off was little help against the icy jaws of cold, but without it, visibility would have been reduced simply to wishful thinking. The bearer of the flame stumbled slightly in the thigh deep snow, fighting to hide the slip from the others pushing forward against the blizzard as his breath came in short, sharp pants, the wind whipping away traces of his panting before it had time to linger in a soft fog.

It had been like this ever since the elementals had set foot in the Land of the Shifters, and Caj wondered, not for the first time, if all winters this far north were truly as inhospitable as this one. For a week now the group had trudged northward towards the Wooden City, never wavering from their goal, and breaking only when carrying on spelled certain death. It had been grueling, and for the past few sickening hours, Caj had begun to wonder if they’d made a mistake in their navigation and now were truly lost in the swirling winter winds.

Desperate to tramp down on the slowly mounting horror of their endless trudge, his mind turned for what felt like the millionth time to thoughts of home; sun bleached beaches, silver-green olive trees, warm tumbling waves. And now - the rot. He couldn’t remember what it had first touched, or the first time he’d seen it, but it had come like water sweeping a flood plain; first a trickle then a deluge. It killed all it touched, and no amount of healing could stop it, no burning could halt its deadly march. And so, the most capable elementals had been summoned to Trader’s Haven to begin their quest for the last hope of their Kingdom; the waters of the ancient pool. Calling it a long shot was generous, but with no other options, they’d pursued the old legends, quickly uncovering the rhyme that detailed where the first clue towards the location of the portal could be found. Piecing together that the rhyme was undoubtedly a reference to the the rumored hot springs lying beneath the Wooden City had been easy, but everything since then had been nothing short of brutal.

Sill, the week of travel had given the elementals time - time they’d used to figure out ways into the belly of the city whilst avoiding detection. Having little to work off of other than the handful of scraps of common knowledge, they’d settled on a reliable - if not somewhat unfortunate - plan for traveling through the city undetected; the sewer system would undeniably lead downward, and likely received minimal maintenance. Navigating the winding tunnels would likely only be possible by those with their gifts, even if they had no map to work with.

Though their plan was formulated, the unspoken truth hung heavy over all their heads; all the planning in the world wouldn’t save them if they were lost to the screaming winds.

Like a ship rising on a sudden wave, lights came into view through a part of the blizzard - the Wooden City. The lit windows shimmered faintly, looking horribly like something akin to hope, ephemeral in their striking beauty. They hadn’t been wrong in their trajectory after all, and Caj allowed his shoulders to slump slightly in relief - or perhaps that was the weight of his pack, bending his body beneath the fists of the storm. The flame in his hand never wavered.

The struggle to the foot of the city was perhaps the painful part of the journey - as though the storm itself was trying to defer them from their task. Still, they pushed on until at long last they stood beneath the exterior wall of the looming city, shivering beneath it’s wooden spires hidden in the churning clouds. Roughly ten feet above them was a large drain pipe tall enough for any one of the elementals to walk into, leaking a dull gray liquid that Caj chose not to focus on. Instead, he turned toward the brave adventurers who’d fought the weather itself and survived, making sure that each of them were alive and one piece, and giving them the chance to do the same. In the relative safety of the city’s shadow, Caj allowed himself a moment to breathe, before he put on a brave face with as charming a smile as he could manage through chattering teeth, and knelt to the ground with his fingers interlaced, ready to give a boost to whoever needed it. “I can’t believe we’re reached this point so soon, but I’d happily take a sewer over this,” a jerk of his head towards the billowing storm, “So…who’s first?”

My gallery · by **Stargazer3000** » Mon Jan 24, 2022 11:52 am

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location Old Wooden City Inn
mentioned other creators
tagged none

The door leading to the lavish suite suddenly swung open with enough force to rattle the cheery sign on its front indicating that the room was occupied. ‘Suite’ was a strong word for the small sitting room and adjoined sleeping chambers, but it was the best that the Old Wooden City Inn had to offer - and most importantly it was blessedly warm with a crackling fire in the hearth. “Good news, that ancient old man two doors down finally kicked it! He’s bitten the dust - is pushing daisies - is…well, I’d say that he’s in a ‘better place’, but that could mean just about anything; his room had this crack in the ceiling letting in the cold, so almost anywhere would be a ‘better place’.” Nym pratted on as she bounded into the little sitting room, and flung herself into the nearest open chair.

The evident glee in her eyes at the death of the strange old man might have been horribly misconstrued if not for the fact that it served as their only ticket into the heart of the city - and as the first lead they’d had in days for saving the Republic.

The disease, the awful, wasting disease had filled the air of the floating cities with a horrible cloying sweetness that clung to every surface, and served as an unrelenting reminder of the climbing risk that the people faced. Every measure had been taken to stop the creeping death, but nothing could halt the growing infection until the cities of the future were forced to study the ways of the past. As the legend of an ancient healing pool surfaced it quickly became the last hope of the sky people, and it hadn’t taken long for archivists and historians to crack the riddle pointing towards the long-buried hot springs. The best minds available were gathered and promptly delivered via blimp to the Wooden City with the sole task of getting to the bottom of the towering structures.

This task, however, was proving far more complicated than initially anticipated, and the first few days of exploring the city had yielded very little by way of relevant information. Navigating the upper levels was easily done, but the further down they attempted to travel by foot, the denser the buildings had become until they could barely fit a hand between them, much less their own bodies. They’d toyed with the idea of navigating the ancient sewer system, but without a reliable map and potential cave-ins that venture would be too risky and time consuming to outweigh any potential benefits. They’d then discovered the ancient catacombs, but they risked drawing too much attention to themselves if they tried to break in - and worse yet getting exact information on the location of the entrance was nigh impossible. This left them with the only other route to the heart of the city; the chutes.

Disposing of the dead is a messy business, made no easier by frozen grounds and piles of snow as high as a house. The Wooden City, for all its advances had not yet found a way around this issue, instead crafting an intricate system of chutes throughout the city for disposing of bodies that had no alternative resting place. So down into the darkness of the old city the bodies went, falling into the caverness nothing. Some rumors held that something down there fed on the remains, but either way it didn’t bother Nym much. It was a way forward…or rather, a way down.

As convenient as this new solution was, the creators were still stuck behind one undeniable truth; the entrances to these chutes were kept as a secret - there was no reason for the Wooden City to open up it’s most vulnerable parts to just anyone. And so the group had been stuck with the grim task of tracking a lone person on the edge of death and simply…waiting. Nym had taken to this last task particularly poorly, occupying her time mainly by sitting in the downstairs tavern and conversing with the locals, even partaking in a few card games.

In preparation for the death, the creators had laid a trap of sorts - the floor just outside of the now dead man’s door was covered in a fine layer of powder that would interact upon contact with the snow outside and leave a trail for the creators to follow once the body had been retrieved. But they’d have to be quick - the tracks wouldn’t last for long.

Still, death had come, as it always does, Nym picking up the news as it had been shared in hushed voices between the other tavern patrons. As soon as she’d heard, she’d bounded up the stairs to share the news - finally, finally they were getting somewhere. No sooner had Nym closed the door to their suite than heavy footsteps and low murmured voices could be heard outside the room - the city had come to collect. “Who’s ready for a treasure hunt?” Nym murmured partially to herself, pulling on her long overcoat with a quick wink to her companions.

𝐑 𝐄 𝐕 𝐄 𝐑 𝐈 𝐄 𝐒 [closed - pm if still interested]

𝐑 𝐄 𝐕 𝐄 𝐑 𝐈 𝐄 𝐒 [closed - pm if still interested]

Re: 𝐑 𝐄 𝐕 𝐄 𝐑 𝐈 𝐄 𝐒 [fantasy RP/wip]

Re: 𝐑 𝐄 𝐕 𝐄 𝐑 𝐈 𝐄 𝐒 [fantasy RP/wip]

Re: 𝐑 𝐄 𝐕 𝐄 𝐑 𝐈 𝐄 𝐒 [fantasy RP/wip]

Re: 𝐑 𝐄 𝐕 𝐄 𝐑 𝐈 𝐄 𝐒 [fantasy RP/wip]

Re: 𝐑 𝐄 𝐕 𝐄 𝐑 𝐈 𝐄 𝐒 [fantasy RP/wip]

Re: 𝐑 𝐄 𝐕 𝐄 𝐑 𝐈 𝐄 𝐒 [full - please pm if interested!]

Re: 𝐑 𝐄 𝐕 𝐄 𝐑 𝐈 𝐄 𝐒 [full - please pm if interested!]

Re: 𝐑 𝐄 𝐕 𝐄 𝐑 𝐈 𝐄 𝐒 [full - please pm if interested!]

Re: 𝐑 𝐄 𝐕 𝐄 𝐑 𝐈 𝐄 𝐒 [full - please pm if interested!]

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