#limpfisted

[avernusdamned]

@limpfisted inquired:

“I don’t think I…. properly apologized.” Wyll trails off, his voice as quiet and still as the night air, but so much colder, even despite the cinders burning through both their involuntary changes. He feels emboldened. He feels bitter. And like the call of the cicadas, his own voice sounds oppressive and consuming in its firm crisp bluntness, shrill to his now sensitive ears. The guilt surrounds him. But it does not consume him. That is the job of the shame, to choke like Mizora’s leash—for having to say this, and every direction that smoke bomb of a weighted obligation billows outward in the Sword Coast’s humidity. “I should do that, right?” He smiles after a long pause, softness filling the space between his scars, the furrow beneath his horns unfurling if only for a moment, his gaze catches just the corner of her eyes. “Though if you’d prefer, instead, to fight me instead for your own honor, I think I would much prefer it.”

There's a delay in response, only a couple of seconds, before her head turns and she gives Wyll an empathetic smile without truly realizing that she is. Every description of her that Wyll was fed and he repeated contradicts this quick and subtle moment of oh, you poor sod but I won't say it aloud. She cannot begin to think of what runs through Wyll's head but she does know this: the man didn't deserve it. But devils rarely care about what is deserved and not deserved.

An apology. Karlach almost laughs. Those sound like fairytale. Devils don't deal in apologies (but here Wyll stands already contradicting her thought. Again, not to be said aloud.) " Oh, I don't know. " She finally gives out a laugh as the not quite tension settles before it even grows into something to hate. " As fun as a good ol' fashioned tussle sounds I wouldn't want to give you what you want! "

She gets a bit loud and more smiley as she finishes the sentence, all the more reason to show that she's joking. It's easier to make things lighter if she laughs and smiles. She doesn't feel like she's earned an apology. All the things that Wyll's been told about her and repeated... well there's merit to it. Contradictions or not. Despite doing it all at Zariel's hand... perhaps she deserves to be hunted. Maybe in a different life it would have been easier. Especially knowing all that she knows now. " It's my apology after all, right? I want to savour it. "

[elkenbulwark]

@bruinescence

U may call birv princess while he's down collecting his knees -

@limpfisted

wyll vc I would rather call you a cleric

POV Log: You've taken -8 fall damage and are now prone in a healthy swash of blood. "Do not. I'm building character-"

[recitedemise]

Gale is prosey, honey-sweet nonsense. He's the mind of scholars, the tenacity of intellectuals whittled by books, but that tongue he wags with such maddening abandon? That, truth be told, is the stuff of bards. Of course, honest, Gale shan't ever deny it. After all, he's a man moved by poems, a ravenous consumer of every heart-rending sonnet, and as he tosses his gaze unto the mighty Blade, it's this very penchant that stares on back. Hm. "Were anyone to challenge me in the art of sharing the written word," he declares, "I should think it'd be you, Wyll." There's not a sprig of doubt. His eyes fall to that table, his friend's collection of tomes stacked beside a leg, and, with a smile, Gale closes his book.

"You're rather eager to sharpen your skills on the whetstone of our companions, I've noticed." My word, that is teasing pinched in that grin.

@limpfisted, liked for a starter.

[sanguinir]

@limpfisted asked: who died and made you king? still accepting

❝      𝚀𝚄𝙸𝚃𝙴   𝙰   𝙻𝙾𝚃   𝙾𝙵   𝙿𝙴𝙾𝙿𝙻𝙴,   𝙰𝙲𝚃𝚄𝙰𝙻𝙻𝚈.      ❞   The   casually   cruel   smile   is   momentarily   concealed   by   a   healthy   sip   of   blood   wine,   crimson   stained   teeth   peeking   through   pale   lips   at   his   one-time   traveling   companion.   The   years   since   the   defeat   of   the   absolute   had   been   incredibly   kind   to   the   former   vampire   spawn,   his   power   and   influence   spreading   farther   and   faster   than   either   Cazador   or   Gortash   could   have   dreamed   of.   Now   Ascendent,   Astarion   was   just   as   likely   to   be   seen   in   shady   backrooms   of   Lower   City   taverns   brokering   illicit   deals   as   he   was   here,   at   balls   attended   by   Baldur’s   Gate’s   high   society   and   crafting   political   policy.  

Turning   with   a   cocked   head,   calculating   carmine   eyes   traced   Wyll’s   form   with   little   regard   for   subtlety.   The   elf   had   had   little   use   for   𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒐𝒆𝒔   since   he   had   been   turned,   even   if   he   had   been   dragged   kicking   and   screaming   into   being   hero   adjacent   because   of   Tav,   and   he   had   less   use   for   them   now.   Morals   were   such   pesky   things,   anyway,   always   getting   in   the   way   of   the   things   one   wants.  

❝      Surely   running   around   the   wilds   of   the   Sword   Coast   have   not   addled   your   brains   that   much,   Wyll.   You   were   there   to   watch   me   kill   a   fair   few   of   them.   But   back   to   the   point      —      lots   of   things   have   changed   in   Baldur’s   Gate.   Has   your   father   not   been   keeping   you   up   to   date   on   the   politics   in   the   city?   Shame,   that.      ❞

[hallowleaf]

✧ STARTER: @limpfisted

"I do not enjoy this sitting around and waiting," announces Lae'zel, irate, as though her saying so might suddenly cause the sprain in her ankle to dissipate. Bah. Were that they had the services of one of K'liirs ghustil in their employ — or, better, were that Shadowheart did not have a stick up her ass in every matter that surrounded Lae'zel's well-being. Either or would do: and result in her being able to fight again.

Either her annoyance boils over, or the ghaik worm in her skull continues to wriggle, aimlessly gloating. She spits onto the dirt floor, and continues to lament.

Though, she supposes, it could certainly be worse. Not that it couldn't be better, but there are worse people to be stuck in camp with. She was not the only one who'd been claimed by injury, though at the very least Wyll can claim his injuries as an expense of protection. Not that Lae'zel was ever in true need of protection, but... Wyll, for all of his rehearsed gusto about blades and heroics and whatever manner of pompous slop, at the very least has the sword skill to back up his chatter.

Loath as she is to admit it.

How their companions must suffer, that the two most skilled combatants in their retinue are out of commission for the foreseeable future. "And you, Wyll, must enjoy this idleness even less. How fare your wounds? Aside from the presumed blow to your ego."

[weavewilled]

"I will pay you in all the fortunes of the Flaming Fist, if you will spin me a psalm, tell me a tale, speak magic into words into magic---and tell me how it feels to touch and mould the weave, and have it full inside you." ↳ @limpfisted

THERE  IS,  TRULY,  LITTLE  THAT  WOULD  INTEREST  HIM  SO  MUCH AS THIS —  the  request  is  barely  out  of  Wyll’s  mouth  before  acceptance  and  agreement  is  plain.  It’s  been  so  long  since  he’s  been  able  to  share  what  he  loves  about  who  and  what  he  is  ——  

❝  No,  no,  the  journey  of  telling  it  all  is  all  the  payment  needed,  ❞  protests  he  with  a  little  laugh,  but  then  the  gravity  of  the  complexity  and  depth  of  the  question  both  settles  into  him,  and  the  smile  eases.  ❝  It’s  something  that  spoken  language  scarcely  has  the  capacity  to  describe,  but  I  will  try.  ❞ 

A  hum  of  something  softly  eager  swirls  through  his  bones  —  hums,  resonates,  is  warm  and  welcoming.  ❝  Trust  me,  then,  and  let  me  show  you.  Close  your  eyes.  ❞

[silksworn]

TRAUMA TW: how does it feel for ira to control the dead, knowing she can never bring true life back to her family’s corpses? does she ever touch a corpse and see her grandmother’s touch mirrored in the shape of a hand, or the weight of it? or, in a more literary sense: do the bones and corpses of the victims she puppets, ever match and/or break the same way as her family?

Iraestra often closes her eyes and sees only ghosts behind them. She opens her eyes and sees the dead, soft-jawed servants and instruments of profane knowledge. She surrounds herself with their rotting presence, perhaps out of a longing for the familiar. before their deaths, she had never learned the secrets of undeath. Her current studies a direct result of this desire that she can never fulfill — to raise them from their subterranean graves.

She did not see the bodies of her family, and that is, perhaps, her biggest regret. Fate would have it that she was not there the day that her ancestral home was sacked and then sundered from the very edge of the city itself by divine fury. She had been off researching rumors of an aboleth deep within forbidden tunnels of the Underdark with her cousin, far from the slaughter. Though their absence is what spared them, Iraestra will always blame herself for not being there. The rumors never came to fruit, anyway.

But she has seen enough dead to be able to imagine well their cold, dead eyes, their crooked knuckles and swollen limbs. They likely wouldn't have had time to rot before their bones were picked clean. Scavengers of the Underdark would have skittered out of their loathsome homes en masse that day, eager to feast upon the flesh of noble drow and slave chattel alike. All equal in death as far as a hungry mouth is concerned.

Iraestra does not own mirrors and covers them if she has the means to. It is worse to look upon her own face and see her mother's hooked nose, her grandmother's proud chin, the almond shape of her sister's eyes peering out from her own wretched visage. What is she if not a haunted house?

And oh, how they would hate her, to know that they had died and she would live. That she did not even try to dig for them and bring them back.

The glooming, swooning hours of the night belong solely to her most inane longings. The ones where she imagines she would have found them all. Would have known such magics at the time to be able to bring them back to her, perfect and intact. That they would laud her in praise for her dutifulness.

That once, perhaps, she would not be a disappointment of a daughter.

[cairdine]

If I waste a minute of a day in stardew valley I'm like. Well. Its all over. Taking a drag of my cigarette

gotta maximize productivity every second!!! *chugs coffee*

[bruinescence]

@limpfisted cont.

Just about every god had temples; places thoroughly inspirited with art and incense where dogmatic worship was not unknown to follow. Granted, the area he and the Blade entered through a root-cellar like staircase down into the earth itself amongst oaken roots wouldn't quite qualify as a 'temple' by any traditional means. At the very least, one might call it a shrine...placed there for weary travelers to rest and perhaps seek the Oak Father's counsel or his blessing through meditation and small offering. A heavy root that broke through one wall and hung somewhat awkwardly out into the room still had several pouches hanging beneath it, though any fruit offerings within them had surely spoiled by now.

Halsin soon forgot the company he was with in favor of striding up the middle of the bleak room, steps slow and purposeful - yet uncertain all the same. The place of quiet comfort he had once known was merely a shadow of its former self-...much like the rest of the lands within the curse's choke-hold.

Wyll's curiosity fell on temporarily deaf ears as he sidled up to the far wall painted with faded depictions of Silvanus's wisdom depicted in child-like storybook imagery. Even the most boisterous of children accompanying their parents could not help but fall curiously calm amid the array of alluring bedtime stories. Now they lay dormant in a way that evoked not wonder at nature's hold, but sadness over its grip now lifeless. Running callouses along the color-sapped stones, he paused over a smudged image of what may have been a deer at one time and was now a soundless shape with horns.

A jolt passed through his arm as energy the curse could not extract caused his breath to hitch momentarily; druidic...withstanding the march of time alongside nature. Desperate, frightened, trapped...the feeling of an animal cornered all compiled at once in a single charge that had but one word attached to the infused message-

"Halsin?"

He broke the connection to the wall with a harsh inhale, suddenly reminded of his need for air, tainted as it was. With a slow shift, he pivoted and strode over to Wyll. "Silvanus left these lands ages ago. This place is no different than any other within the curse's boundaries. It is...empty."

[countercharmda]

The third question for every category

from this lovely post!

Does your Tav have any comments or advice when you recruit other companions?

[upon having Wyll join your party/camp]

Serendipity: hells -- can you actually believe it? THE blade of frontiers, at our camp? and he has a nemesis...the saga is practically writing itself!

[upon saving Gale from the transportation circle]

Serendipity: not bad thinking, finding that sigil! of course, if it were me, i wouldn't have needed someone to pull me out, but points for trying.

[if you have Ren in your party when you meet Karlach]

Serendipity: by the nine hells -- she's resplendent! i can't wait to hear how she lost her horn

How do they react to Astarion biting the Player Character?

[the morning after the bite]

Serendipity: so, there's a vampire in our midst, eh? can't say i've had the pleasure of meeting one -- outside the pages of some risque novels, mind. you'll have to fill me in on the details later; i'm curious how they compare.

Are they a polyamorous or a monogamous option?

honestly? given his history with the troupe, he wouldn't mind sharing. makes sense to me tbh

[avernusdamned]

“Be honest. Can you even stand to look at me, now?”

Sharp teeth bite down on the inside of her cheek and the familiar taste of something copper sits at the tip of her tongue. She's hesitating for too long and she knows that she is, it's hard to cover her emotions when she wears her heart on her sleeve and the emotions seem to burst from her like a poorly covered pot. Wyll, by now, has likely made an answer in his own head she's sure. Because even as he asks it, she refuses to look at him.

A part of her wants to let him stew in that silence. For his brain to start thinking the worst because it is the only form of solace she could possibly get. But those are just thoughts forged from a broken heart. (And she's just gotten it too.) " I don't know, Wyll. " Her voice is flat, no high upbeat bounce to it. No laugh to weave between syllables like the cherry on top. She sits stiffly. Uncomfortable and uneasy. There was a time where she would never have felt this way around Wyll. Gods, he's seen things that others hadn't in a decade.

Maybe that's why it hurts so hard. Because she let him in and kept letting him in until he had made a home in her. A spot just for Wyll in a dusty little corner of her heart. Now locked. Shut. KEEP OUT. DO NOT OPEN. CONTAMINATED. Gods ... gods ... gods ... she could be sick. Feels like she may just. " He... you... " her brows knit together tightly as her head turns to his direction but she still does not look at him. Her eyes are pointed at his feet. His knees. His hands. Anything but his face.

She swallows a lump that had been building in her throat and her bottom lip begins to quiver. Fists form into two tight little balls and she crosses her arms, trying to contain the blast from the exploding bomb inside of her. " I TRUSTED you. " and there is an anger inside of her that Wyll has only ever seen directed at him a handful of times. Mostly as the Blade of Frontiers.

" He sold me to the devil. You know that, right? Don't you? " Now she looks at him, eyes glazed over with fresh tears but a fire burning bright within her irises. " Gave me up without a single passing thought about it so he could, Oh I dunno, TAKE OVER THE WORLD? "

The hurt in her voice is not so easily hidden behind her rage. Though, to prevent her flair up from getting as bad as when she found out, she tries to breathe easier. Steady breaths. Just like Dammon showed her. She tears her eyes away and lets the tears fall, no sense trying to keep them from doing so. She doesn't sob or sniffle, she sits there as cold as stone. " Hope it was worth it. Hope it felt good. "

[elkenbulwark]

hc // Obligation vs Resentment - Ouroboros

The relationship between Birvor and the elf he'd been raised to regard as a brother (Ren) is not as cut and dry as it seems, though it would take them the journey of losing their home to the army of the absolute, their sense of selves (due to bot the illithid infection and their violent uprooting), and the discovery of who they can become when no longer burdened by forced sentry duty or enforced smothering.

For all intensive purposes, the brothers were both victims on different sides of the same spectrum under their parents. For Birvor, they may have purported the idea that he was also a son beside his brother, but he was also seen as property- and although parents do own their children in a way, they don't necessarily brand them to let others know that. Granted, in the minds of the family - no one would know that Birvor belonged to their family unit due to their vastly differing appearances, and with a culture where taking halfling thralls was very much common place amongst this faction of high elves, it was seen as absolutely necessary to avoid another family taking claim of 'unclaimed' halflings spotted among their ranks.

While he was treated harshly and far more critically than his brother and was expected to stay tough under the most daunting of pressure to be a shield for any that might look to settle upon his brother, he was essentially allowed to venture out of the family home on various outings - either with those he needed to escort, or simply running errands for their family and was allowed to do so because his brand always ensured he would return or be returned. In contrast, his brother was expected to either stay inside and never venture out of the home unless he was with Birvor. While Birvor's 'leash' tied him to the family's home in the way a long rope tied to a tree in one's front yard might, his brother's was to be held by him when not in the hands of their parents - and from the perspective of an elf like his brother who'd come to know of halflings and orcs as being beneath the elves, such was a contemptuous fate that only encouraged the brother to dislike Birvor more for his service to the family because he, like them, was just another force holding him back from his own independence.

So it's no surprise that when both brothers are uprooted from the life they'd known, Birvor no longer has an anchoring point from which to refer to aside from his brother, and his brother no longer has to submit to Birvor holding his leash. Birvor of course still hangs on to keep some form of connection to the past despite how undesirable of a situation it had been since it was all he ever knew whereas all his brother ever knew was the constant feeling of being held back and coddled. This causes friction between them during the journey to cure themselves of their tadpoles since his brother is very much seeking independence that he is not able to fully attain with Birvor still serving as that last part of his past that kept him shuttered in and sheltered.

Resentment and pettiness runs like blood between them like that between Gruumsh and Corellan. Both have their own branching path away from one another while they struggle to separate to travel those paths. For the brother, he is seeking out the natural proficiency of the high elves towards learning magic- a desire that was quashed by his parents for being too dangerous. For Birvor, he may find that just because he's not looking for anything directly does not mean it's not looking for him- namely the buried elven bloodlust that calls out to all of Gruumsh's children to some degree at one point or another. When an orc or half-orc loses or gives up an eye, they are more inclined to hear and adhere to that murderous call...and when one solution to rid one's self of their tadpole is dig out an eye, well...it may only be a matter of time before each brother must turn their new identities upon one another.

"A child doesn't ask to be born, a slave doesn't ask to be enslaved. And yet the two of them know nothing else. Even with freedom---even worlds apart, they will be connected by something deeper than blood: Obligation; Resentment." -@limpfisted

[recitedemise]

WAX POETIC.

Send 'wax poetic' for Gale to work some poetry; his muse is you: still accepting.

Not for the first time, Gale watches the sun wreathe that head like a gold-hewn garland. It would make Wyll stand nobler, shimmering him kingly like the grandest of keeps, and on the run of his skin, Gale feels the gentlest summer, the kindest morning, and the stroke of wind.

Of course. Wyll's presence, he decides, is like an inspiring tale. He watches him smile, heroic and heartening. When the Blade speaks alone, a soft timbre that'd spring like sun to lift the dark, it's like... to stand in the audience of sounding trumpets, silver with the banners that'd greet you home.

He can dare the foul with him. They march toward the Shadow lands. Yes, even the longest night is but a passing shadow beside you. You are the very stirring of dawns. I dare the dark to come.

Wylll's first to breach the wall of that wading penumbra. Gale follows not frightened, morning never far.

[moonridge]

　　　the campsite is alight with people and chatter, with tieflings here and there. a celebration is meant for such festivities — and ozus moonridge know this quite well. though laughter and cheer is clear in the aura and air, the warlock somehow seems a bit out of place. it's not what they're used to, certainly. cheap wine fills their cup instead of something aged and expensive. the purpose for tonight isn't for anything so superficial like deal-making and flaunting status, either.

　　　there's something else, too, that lingers in their heart, but ozus can't quite tell what it is. it's a sad, forlorn little thing, despite the fact that the whole party had done such a great thing. the grove is saved, all because of them.

　　　... ah, forget it. whatever it is, it's not important, right?

　　　ozus throws their head back, and with it, the contents of their drink are poured into their mouth and swallowed. swift feet take them over to another warlock, this one familiar and yet still a little unfamiliar. a stranger, yet one they've come to know at least a little bit. what better a time to chat than now? parties are for socializing!

　　　another bottle of wine is snagged from a table as ozus saunters over to wyll and offers him a pleasant smile. with a chipped chalice in one hand and the bottle in the other, there's not much room to pull the cork out from the mouth of it. carefully, ozus leans over and sinks a fang into the cork, then yanks it out. it's spit into the dirt.

　　　quite the uncouth display for the noble-born tiefling, but alas.

　　　❝ i hate parties. ❞ says ozus, helping themselves to pouring the wine into their cup. the bottle is then offered toward wyll. ❝ usually, at least. this one's different. i think i like this one! will you toast with me, wyll? ❞

　　　　　　　　　　 —@limpfisted || 🥂—

[fals3nd]

@limpfisted said ; "You are worthy, you know. A proper legend, if I do say so myself. Battling through Avernus. Fusing with a mysterious relic. Leading us now. All that hardship. Lesser stories are told to more applause and accolades than you've recieved."

meredith shakes her head at the praise. it sounds so glorious from the lips of someone who wasn't there. there was no glory in it at all. her gaze falls to the aforementioned relic, the shining silver of her hand. it is only the sleeves to her wrists that hide how far the metallic shine has crept. "you're - - - too kind." she says quietly and smiles, though it doesn't manage to reach the corners of her eyes. "it isn't all it's cracked up to be." the lack of anonymity is ... difficult. hooded cloaks and thick gloves can only do so much.

"besides. i let diana and the others take more've the praise. they like it more than me." the inn they're in now is that of her fellow champion of avernus, situated in the lower city - - - the golden mammoth was purchased by the bard diana off of the back of her fame as a champion. it only makes sense for new heroes in the making to be here as well as those who have been established as such.

[lunarscaled]

"You really think you can promise all that?"

THE FOLK OF THE AIR: THE CRUEL PRINCE pt. 5

-> Their past and future entwine in the prideful white scales that speckle their arms, creep up their neck and crown their face along the curves of their cheeks, like snowfall clinging to cliff edges; I will pay any price. Their own voice, younger than they are now, echoing in the void of their head---what would a child have known of the weight of deals? Of promises that would bend their family name for generations to come, how lack of clarity comes back to bite you because it is a confused dog trying to obey commands you never taught it. They had only ever wanted to cure their mother's ailment. That was all that they wanted. What child could accept a parent who loved them being sick?

"---I won't take criticisms from someone like you."

-> Lyric thinks about lines drawn in the sand as arbitrary markers of where titles end and identities begin: Child they were called in the croon of a dragon's ancient voice, not the age they were now but the age they were when they made the deal, Control your magic or you will freeze to death. Hatchling says another, his broad golden head raised in the bloated, cooled and black inside of a volcano, We pity you. They had dug up the frozen dirt with their bare hands just to tuck the bodies into the graves, 200 holes a little too shallow to be done right, they moved rocks from the beach to be headstones. Nothing undoes what has happened. He calls himself a Hero but what is a hero to them---nobody came in all that time they were alone, how could someone like him berate them for their choices now? For petty lies? For grandiose exclamations; if they told a refugee child they could bring them starlight in a bottle to cure their restless moods, who was he to judge? The duty of the hero is merely to succeed in the story, so they are already against each other. Their position as "the dragon" determines it.

-> Lyric straightens from where they had been crouching to be eyelevel with the child who had a broken eggshell of a heart, themselves and the one before them, and with no hurry do they turn their gaze upon him directly: their eyes the color of persimmons fully ripe, they had been told, with crisp leaves in your hair you look like an autumn deity.

"I will promise everything, and fulfill it, if I so wish to."

"I have nothing to lose if I fail, but the same cannot be said of you, can it, Hero?"