#myrefall

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Date: May 30 Time: Midday Location: Temple of Doom and Despair, Myrefall Status: Self-para/Open 

Runswick has become Cinder's home in Hegaehend. His travels outside the city have been far and few in between, a measure he himself put in place as an attempt to anchor himself in one place and prevent his old vagabond habits from his homeland to follow him here. Don't get Cinder wrong: He loves traveling, believes it to be a good way to learn new things and expand a person's horizons. It's just Cinder has stopped trying to learn new things, expanding his horizons, ever since the Sais' tragedy. His departure from his homeland, his self-imposed exile, was more of a punishment than a cause to travel. 

Fortunately, there's always a good bounty at Lunacrest and often times an even better reward. This was one of those times. Cinder felt the Myrefall earthquake from around six days ago through a rich and pretty bored noble who hired him and a couple of others for an expedition of sorts. The shifter didn't actually understand what kind of expedition it was nor did he care. He only said yes because of the money, which was why he had a wide grin on his face as he sat on the back of a wagon with the other bounty hunters en route to the scar. "Money, money, money!"

His enthusiasm, however, slowly waned when they rode nearer and nearer to Myrefall. Stories of curses and strange phenomenon reached them but they were already too close to turn back: People transforming into something else, a human turning into a goblin and a goblin turning into a human; undead flooding the city, a few covered in strange flora; and even steel becoming red-hot in an instant with no apparent or visible cause. Cinder found himself worried about these stories but not worried enough to abandon his need for coin to seek safety elsewhere. In fact, he agreed with the others to insist on asking for a raise from their benefactor, which the latter gave, until a misguided attempt to clear the undead in the city led to that same benefactor dying and the rest of their party routed.

"Melora damn this place!" Cinder screamed as he found himself pursued by two of the undead. He managed to escape the bigger crowd, though his own wilted from three to just himself. Even his rage could not keep them off of him for so long. His wits did, though, and the shifter slunk safely within an undergrowth where his pursuers could not find him. Steeling himself, he kept quiet for as long as the pair of undead stayed. Thankfully, they did not stay that long. 

Soon, Cinder went out from his hiding place, knowing he needed to get out of the city as soon as he can. He tried his best to stay hidden, moving closely to the shadows, though he was seemingly drawn to a specific direction. Cinder did not know where he ended up, only that the garden of flowers around it smelled sweet. Catching a sight of stray dogs and even cats, the shifter assumed it was a place hospitable to the tamed creatures of the city, the domesticated pets. Some of them even walked beside him towards the same direction he was going, completely unaware or rather ignorant of his present. At the sight of some clergy from a safe distance, Cinder stopped. He stood alone, observing them. "Is this...her temple?"

He saw one of the men turn towards him, noticing his presence from a mile away, and the others followed suit. Cinder smiled. This could be home. At least, for the time being. He was in the middle of taking his first step when he felt something hot from within him. Was it the beast within trying to get out? He swallowed air as he slowly realized it was something worse. It was his okurimono, but something about it was strange, very strange indeed. He turned towards the men of the temple and thanked Melora they were a safe distance from him.

A bright streak flashed from within Cinder, blossoming with a low roar into an explosion of flame.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?  

This was getting to be very irritating. It felt like Jax’s hands kept alternating between freezing and being on fire every 20 minutes and she was so done with all of it. She sighed heavily, her head in her hands as she sat on the ground outside of her home. It probably wasn’t the best idea to be outside while chaos reigned over the city, but Jax didn’t much care at the moment. They just needed the air. At first, Jax thought she hadn’t been impacted too much by the earthquake. Other than the occasional effect on the elemental power she had access to, nothing major had happened. Her dog Vera sometimes had bubbles coming out of her mouth when she barked and Elias’s scales had changed color, but Amyru was unchanged. Jax was very okay with that result. But then her mother woke up as a half-orc and that made things a little more stressful. But to Jax’s surprise, she seemed to be taking the change in stride. Or maybe she was just putting on a brave face for Jax. She couldn’t tell.

She sighed and reached down for the cup of coffee that sat on the ground next to her. But as she lifted her hand up she saw that her hand was once again wreathed in flame. “Son of a-” She put the cup down and tried futilely to put the flames out on her hand. The flames didn’t burn her skin, or anything else it touched. It was just very annoying. After a moment, the flames disappeared and she sighed again. Grabbing the coffee once more, she brought the coffee up to her lips. It took her a second to realize that the coffee had frozen the second time she had touched it. With a noise of frustration, she put the cup back down and leaned her head back against the wall she sat against. “I’m so fucking done with this,” she said, not noticing, or caring, if anyone was nearby to hear it.

It had been a bit of a long day on top of a long week of travelling to get to the afflicted city. Sitting down heavily at a table, all Jakoby wanted to do was have some ale and relax for a little while. In the city’s current state, it was a bit difficult to do so. But he came here to help. He’d been at the Crossroads when the chaos had started, and after sending word back home, he set out for Myrefall right away. His drink sitting on the table, he sighed and ran his hand through Rae’s fur absently as she sat at his feet. When he’d arrived at this inn the day before, the innkeeper had looked warily at the panther, but the man allowed her to stay in the room with Jakoby with the assurance that he would cover any damages that might come about because of her. He tiredly rubbed his eyes for a moment and was about to reach for his mug of ale, but when he opened his eyes, he suddenly saw that the mug was floating in the air in front of him.

Quickly, he grabbed it and brought it back down to the table. He glanced up, but the person tending bar didn’t seem to notice. Or, if they had, they didn’t bother to say anything. It probably wasn’t the craziest thing to have happened over the past week since this started. But it was enough to bother Jakoby. It was the third time this had happened to him today, and it was making him more and more anxious. He barely used his telekinetic ability as it was, but the wild magic so prevalent in the air was making it hard to keep a good handle on it.

Sometime in the early hours of the day, Thalra felt a trembling that shook her bed and made the paintings affixed to her bedroom walls on the third-floor rattle. But as Thalra was still half-drunk and sleepy from the evening before she’d enjoyed with Efrain and her brother, and because the shaking stopped rather quickly and seemed to have no other consequence except for a strange prickling feeling on her skin, she merely turned over in her sheets and receded her mind back into her trance. Except, as she went to do so, her mind fell into a slumber that was unlike what most elves experienced. She began to sleep, and as she did, her skin changed color from obsidian to a dark earthy green. Her hair thickened and pulsed and came alive, until slumbering white snakes curled in and around her pillow. Thalra’s eyes, which had once been pupil-less and pastel lilac in color, turned white, with yellow pupils forming behind her closed lids.

When she finally awoke, and stretched out in her bed, for a moment, she noticed nothing. Then her skin caught on the sheets, and Thalra noticed that she felt as if her bed had grown just slightly smaller, or- no, that she had grown a few precious inches in the night. Thalra’s eyes snapped open and the light filtering in from her window looked different, as if the way her eyes processed light had changed. She raised her arm up and saw green, and patches of scales.

And Thalra screamed.

This, of course, woke the snakes up, who began to hiss sleepily in annoyance. Thalra felt them slither by her neck and shrieked again, leaping from her bed and clutching her own head only to find her hands filled with thick scaled bodies, twisting around her wrists and arms. She rolled out of bed and onto her feet, clawing at her own head as hissing filled her ears almost louder than her own screams. Her back hit her dresser as she continued screaming, her mind racing. But as she looked around, her eyes fell on her bureau and she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The scream choked off in her throat as she stared for a long moment, taking herself in. Her skin had changed hue, still dark, but now with a substantial green tint. Snakes sprouted from her scalp, and wound their way around her fingers as they explored her arms. And as she looked, her mouth gaping open in horror, she saw that her tongue was split down the middle, forked, and thinner than it had been.

Lurching to the side and away from her reflection, Thalra threw her bedroom door open and raced down the two flights of stairs to the first floor where Nil’s room was and where Efrain had been staying in the guest bedroom the night before. “Nil!” she shouted, throwing open his door and finding the bedroom empty. Her heart, which had been pounding in her chest, skipped a beat as a sense of dread filled her. But she couldn’t stand there frozen, so she turned and went down the hall.

She threw open the door to the room that she’s put Efrain in for the night, hoping that he would have some idea of what to do, or any explanation of what was going on.

The secrets of life are revealed in the laboratory of Merrinyn Delorsath, wherever that may be this week, with her research notes plumbing and cataloging nature's wonders. At least, that's what the triton likes to believe. Her original self-imposed mission was to discover new ways to improve and augment existing issues involving health, but her time on the surface has led her to believe that complete health, of individuals and of the society as a whole, depends on the mutual adaptation of nature and civilization with one another. Suffice to say, biological experimentation has always been among Merrinyn's greater interests.

Her approach to her mission has mostly focused on the incremental progress towards a utopian ideal of thriving biology, remaining more aloof from politics than other researchers, which was why she was able to bypass, rather ignore, the otherwise necessary courtesy call to Myrefall's ruling body. Instead, Merrinyn just made her way directly to the area of the magical...scar, desperately hoping to study and learn what could be welcomed additions to her notes. "When I said I wanted to visit Myrefall, the city didn't have to welcome me with such a magnificent development. A wonderful detour, this is, if I say so myself."

As soon as they were close, Merrinyn wasted no time in taking out her Journal of Easy Noting and dictating her thoughts to it, its magic quickly writing down everything she had to say. "This is marvelous. The surrounding area of the earthquake that had unexpectedly welcomed us on our way to Myrefall has, well, changed, for the lack of a better term. I'm assuming, from the looks of our coachman's face, the width of his opened jaw and its distance from the ground, that this deep chasm, a hundred foot or so, was not always here... A literal scar across the earth, left by the eruption." 

She turned her attention to the roots sprouting from the chasm, squinting, poking at them with a stick, while she continued to take notes. "Roots, seemingly unbreakable, have sprouted from the chasm, clawing into the nearby ground." Taking a closer look, she catches a whiff of an unpleasant scent and coughs, almost gags at least once. "There's a garden of strange flowers, too, oozing viscous liquid, smelling like...entrails? That's new. All around, the grass have changed colors as well, mimicking the shades of the rainbow." She yelps as birds suddenly dive into the chasm from behind and above her. "Now that isn't anything you see every day. Birds are diving straight into the chasm, and without any warning, I should add."  

Merrinyn spent the next few hours making more of the same observations. The coachman she had hired to deliver her to Myrefall had wanted to leave, afraid of the uncertainty this geographical intrusion was presenting, but the promise of more coin ensured his loyalty. At least until nightfall. Still, he returned to his carriage and insisted he'd wait for her a safe distance away. The triton could only grin. Small men, small surface men, always fear what they do not understand. 

That is why she was here in the first place, to understand what this was, to ensure that there was nothing to fear. Of course, the surrounding trees wilting and re-growing half a dozen times did not help matters with the coachman, but the possibility to harness that sudden growth, Merrinyn believed to be useful in her research. "Just imagine... We might be able to regrow limbs by isolating this specific event. We could help hundreds, thousands... Not just in Myrefall but beyond."

Unbeknownst to her, she was fast becoming lost in her thoughts, unable to notice someone else was now closing in on her.

Sticks & Strings was a small shop which peeked out onto one of the side streets of Myrefall from between two much larger residential buildings, and it was Thalra’s last stop before heading back to her building for the evening. The sun was already casting its red and orange rays over the tops of the city’s skyline and it was growing late enough that most commerce would be closing for the evening in a matter of an hour or two. Thalra had already done her shopping for the day, with everything neatly tucked away in her satchel, but she’d stopped in when she’d seen a small toy drum set in the window as she was passing. Detka had been with her for a while now, and she had her own instruments, but maybe he’d be interested in picking something up on his own?

The older human gentleman behind the counter looked as if he was mere moments from dozing off at his post, but Thalra didn’t mind, and much preferred not to be heckled as she browsed. There was one other person also in the shop, but she didn’t pay them much mind as she brushed her fingers over the tightly wound strings of a harp in the corner.

Her attention was only half-caught as the door opened with a small chime of bells—another customer she thought, strange that this place was so busy at this point in the evening. But then there was the unmistakable sound of something heavy hitting the ground and wood splintering. Thalra spun around, leaning around a shelf to see a man dressed like a mercenary stood at the front of shop with an entire display crushed to pieces around him and books of sheet music laying open in tumultuous piles on the ground.  The older gentleman, woken from his dozing by the commotion, yelped and started to get up from his stool.

“Oh, how clumsy of me,” said the man who’d just entered, and Thalra noted that most of his clothes looks as if he’d cobbled together the outfit at random. She suspected that meant most of what he was wearing was stolen. He leaned down and picked up a leaflet of sheet music and examined it for a moment in mock curiosity before tearing it down the middle. “But I’m sure you can afford to replace all this, right? You must have a lot saved up since you’ve been skipping out on paying rent.”

Thalra stayed where she was, watching the scene unfold further and wondering what her next move was. If she went for the door, the thug would see her and probably quickly involve her, but if she stayed, she’d likely get herself involved anyway. Her choices seemed very slim at the moment.

The shop owner though, to his credit, didn’t seem all that perturbed by the current events. He slammed his hand down flat on the table and glared at the other man. “We don’t owe you diddly, young man. This shop’s been in my family for generations. We own it, which means all we have to pay is taxes. Now you go on and scoot out of my shop. You’re disturbing my customers.”

Thalra quickly ducked back around the shelf at that comment, trying to stay hidden for as long as possible. She didn’t know if the man noticed her, but it didn’t seem to matter. She heard him mutter, “Oh, you have no idea how disturbing things are about to get.” Then he shouted, “Boys, come on in! Looks like we have to teach Mr. Bronet some manners.” The bell chimed again, and there were the sound of several more people entering the shop.