Dump for setting and character info/brainstorms, writing examples, etc. Critiques/comments are fine. Going to update this post with some sort of TOC as I go with links to important posts, because sanity is important for everyone and I don't want to hunt things down either. Also my networking here, at the time of initial posting, is basically nil I'm going to throw scenes at the wall and see if anything sticks without concerns about collateral. Most stuff I would be open to working on with others, but in the mean time...this is a dump. For my brain gorbage.
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[[Modern fantasy setting, dark, detective story style opening, heads up for violence, not particularly graphic]]
"Hank!" shouted a tall figure, clad in the sort of former finerey of someone who cared about appearances but either could no longer afford such things or had no time to replace them. Given the amount of coin Hank was given for assisting the constabulary guard, he was fairly certain it was the former rather than the latter. The individual in question was Investigator 2nd Class Aethadora Starwinne, an elf woman in her middle years with an overly serious gaze and greying auburn hair pulled back a little too tight into a short ponytail. "Are you even listening?"
Hank took one last draw from the calmstick between his teeth, and then removed it with a shaky hand. He expelled a hazy blue cloud after letting it linger in his lungs for a few moments, extinguishing its embers on the bottom of his shoe before flicking the spent sedative into the gutter. His hands no longer shaking, he scratched the side of his head and shot the investigator a dour look from tired eyes. It was still early, Bedlam's Light was still on the far cycle and dawn was hours away yet. Starwinne's lackeys hadn't even given him the chance to grab coffee from the convenience store on the corner.
"Yeah," he replied wearily, "but I still don't understand what I'm doing here." Hank gestured at the corpse nearby vaguely. "It was obviously a vampire, there's nothing I'm going to be able to help with." The pair stood at the mouth of an alleyway, cobblestones still slick from rain the previous evening and half full of trashcans waiting to be removed in the morning. The dead individual He had indicated was emaciated to the point of being a husk, skin stained red around two black holes on their neck. They had obviously been exsanguinated by one of Bedlam's more nocturnal denizens, though only a feral one would have done something like this. Such individuals weren't hard for the guard to locate usually, given they had already lost control of the beast inside themselves. They didn't usually stop after killing once, and they weren't usually good at hiding either.
"You're not here for them," Aethadora said, giving her human ward a gentle push further into the alley and past her subordinates who were still collecting evidence. She pointed further down the dark path to a space between buildings deeper inside the alley. "Jin is around the corner, he needs an anchor for this one, and you're the only one we've got." Hank stopped and turned to stare at the investigator, his annoyance etched deep enough to pull attention away from the obvious fact that he hadn't been awake for an hour yet. Despite this, he gave no verbal complaint. "Go on, I've got work to do here."
An anchor, of course. It wasn't something that Hank concerned himself with much given his status as a witch, but the septagramatic wards that had been etched into his skin made his presence a stabilizing force in the use of traditional magics. It was akin to being a sentient ritual component. Hank need not actually do anything but be present for whatever it was, but he was still a part of whatever the arcane artifice was and had to experience it along with the practitioner that was casting it. In this case, he knew what sort of thing it was. Jin was one of the guard's augurs. Given that augury was highly unstable, unpredictable magic, it helped to have someone or something on hand that reinforced the order of the aether around which such magics were utilized. In an ideal situation, that meant ritual circles, enchanted candles and incense, maybe even a goat. The guard however, rarely utilized such magics in 'ideal' settings. You couldn't exactly bring your tower to crime scene, after all.
Hank felt something of what was coming before he rounded the corner to see what he'd been sent to assist with, an intense wrongness that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end and made him think of sulphur. Sorcery, the sort of magic Hank and other witches were gifted with, destabilized the aether and left a mark when it was used. At least, for a short while. All the more reason to need an anchor. From the twisting of his gut, Hank had a bad feeling about what he was going to have to see, but it still didn't prepare him fully for the scene. Jin stood near the mouth of the cross alley, covering their mouth and nose with a handkerchief, and only gave the approaching witch a brief glance.
Jin was something decidedly not human, though what Hank hadn't ever sorted out and hadn't felt comfortable asking. The bald, bronze skinned individual was dressed in a freshly pressed and fashionable suit, contrasting starkly with Hank's own disheveled shirt and trousers. At least he'd managed a tie before being dragged out of his apartment. The augur made Hank uncomfortable. Jin was a polite enough individual, but pupiless golden eyes and their constant eerie calm made them nearly impossible to read. Their presence though, was far less concerning than the scene in the alleyway before them.
It almost looked like a bomb had gone off, albeit a weak one made entirely of flesh. Gore coated what would have formed the outline of a sphere on either walls and cobblestones of the alleyway, mostly the black remnants of an undead, but mixed in was a healthy amount of red. Likely, this was the perpetrator for the murder Hank had passed, given that. At least, what was left of them. They hadn't just been killed, they'd been unmade. Violently. The normal oily slick Hank felt around recent necromantic magics left by truly deceased undead was entirely absent. Hank tried to digest what he was seeing, but his stomach decided to disagree with the notion in a manner entirely lacking subtlety.
"Fuck!" Hank said, managing a few steps back into the previous alley before retching onto the wet, uneven stone.
"Indeed," replied Jin, their voice dispassionate and melodic.
- Settings
- Characters
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[[Modern fantasy setting, dark, detective story style opening, heads up for violence, not particularly graphic]]
"Hank!" shouted a tall figure, clad in the sort of former finerey of someone who cared about appearances but either could no longer afford such things or had no time to replace them. Given the amount of coin Hank was given for assisting the constabulary guard, he was fairly certain it was the former rather than the latter. The individual in question was Investigator 2nd Class Aethadora Starwinne, an elf woman in her middle years with an overly serious gaze and greying auburn hair pulled back a little too tight into a short ponytail. "Are you even listening?"
Hank took one last draw from the calmstick between his teeth, and then removed it with a shaky hand. He expelled a hazy blue cloud after letting it linger in his lungs for a few moments, extinguishing its embers on the bottom of his shoe before flicking the spent sedative into the gutter. His hands no longer shaking, he scratched the side of his head and shot the investigator a dour look from tired eyes. It was still early, Bedlam's Light was still on the far cycle and dawn was hours away yet. Starwinne's lackeys hadn't even given him the chance to grab coffee from the convenience store on the corner.
"Yeah," he replied wearily, "but I still don't understand what I'm doing here." Hank gestured at the corpse nearby vaguely. "It was obviously a vampire, there's nothing I'm going to be able to help with." The pair stood at the mouth of an alleyway, cobblestones still slick from rain the previous evening and half full of trashcans waiting to be removed in the morning. The dead individual He had indicated was emaciated to the point of being a husk, skin stained red around two black holes on their neck. They had obviously been exsanguinated by one of Bedlam's more nocturnal denizens, though only a feral one would have done something like this. Such individuals weren't hard for the guard to locate usually, given they had already lost control of the beast inside themselves. They didn't usually stop after killing once, and they weren't usually good at hiding either.
"You're not here for them," Aethadora said, giving her human ward a gentle push further into the alley and past her subordinates who were still collecting evidence. She pointed further down the dark path to a space between buildings deeper inside the alley. "Jin is around the corner, he needs an anchor for this one, and you're the only one we've got." Hank stopped and turned to stare at the investigator, his annoyance etched deep enough to pull attention away from the obvious fact that he hadn't been awake for an hour yet. Despite this, he gave no verbal complaint. "Go on, I've got work to do here."
An anchor, of course. It wasn't something that Hank concerned himself with much given his status as a witch, but the septagramatic wards that had been etched into his skin made his presence a stabilizing force in the use of traditional magics. It was akin to being a sentient ritual component. Hank need not actually do anything but be present for whatever it was, but he was still a part of whatever the arcane artifice was and had to experience it along with the practitioner that was casting it. In this case, he knew what sort of thing it was. Jin was one of the guard's augurs. Given that augury was highly unstable, unpredictable magic, it helped to have someone or something on hand that reinforced the order of the aether around which such magics were utilized. In an ideal situation, that meant ritual circles, enchanted candles and incense, maybe even a goat. The guard however, rarely utilized such magics in 'ideal' settings. You couldn't exactly bring your tower to crime scene, after all.
Hank felt something of what was coming before he rounded the corner to see what he'd been sent to assist with, an intense wrongness that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end and made him think of sulphur. Sorcery, the sort of magic Hank and other witches were gifted with, destabilized the aether and left a mark when it was used. At least, for a short while. All the more reason to need an anchor. From the twisting of his gut, Hank had a bad feeling about what he was going to have to see, but it still didn't prepare him fully for the scene. Jin stood near the mouth of the cross alley, covering their mouth and nose with a handkerchief, and only gave the approaching witch a brief glance.
Jin was something decidedly not human, though what Hank hadn't ever sorted out and hadn't felt comfortable asking. The bald, bronze skinned individual was dressed in a freshly pressed and fashionable suit, contrasting starkly with Hank's own disheveled shirt and trousers. At least he'd managed a tie before being dragged out of his apartment. The augur made Hank uncomfortable. Jin was a polite enough individual, but pupiless golden eyes and their constant eerie calm made them nearly impossible to read. Their presence though, was far less concerning than the scene in the alleyway before them.
It almost looked like a bomb had gone off, albeit a weak one made entirely of flesh. Gore coated what would have formed the outline of a sphere on either walls and cobblestones of the alleyway, mostly the black remnants of an undead, but mixed in was a healthy amount of red. Likely, this was the perpetrator for the murder Hank had passed, given that. At least, what was left of them. They hadn't just been killed, they'd been unmade. Violently. The normal oily slick Hank felt around recent necromantic magics left by truly deceased undead was entirely absent. Hank tried to digest what he was seeing, but his stomach decided to disagree with the notion in a manner entirely lacking subtlety.
"Fuck!" Hank said, managing a few steps back into the previous alley before retching onto the wet, uneven stone.
"Indeed," replied Jin, their voice dispassionate and melodic.
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