JediMaestro

Dear Mama, It’s been a little while since I’ve written you. Things got kinda busy here, and Mr. Angus didn’t have a lot of time to help me with letters. I remember what you said too, right before I left, about not writing you so that I wouldn’t live in the past. For the past few years, I thought I’d done that. I’ve made new friends here, and my cousins have been nice. I’ve gotten used to living in the big city and meeting all sorts of new people. But . . . something happened a year or two ago. It started at a jousting tournament where all the bravest knights and nobles of Idunia were competing. My best friend Senthilde Vourkehardt entered the competition, so I had come to cheer her on (I wish you could meet Tildy – she’s so sweet and nice, and I know you would love her)! After the tournament had ended, I was chatting with Tildy and her friends Mateo and Juliano when all of a sudden, a thick fog rolled in over the fairgrounds. Before we knew it, it was so dark and foggy that I could hardly even see the people next to me. I was already a little spooked, but then I started hearing voices. At first, it was just whispering. It was like they were just barely out of reach; like if I stepped a little closer, I could make out what they were saying. I knew better than to go wandering off though; Tildy had told me stories about evil creatures called darkspawn who will try to lure you away to hurt you. I guess I was too young to know about those when I still lived out in the country with you, even though I’m sure they must be there too. I hope you’re ok living all alone out there. If I’d known scary things like that existed, I wouldn’t have left you by yourself. Anyway, I stayed close to my friends, but then I heard this ear-piercing scream of pain and fear. And . . . it sounded just like you. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared by something since . . . well, since Papa. If Juliano hadn’t kept a hold on me, I would have run after you as fast as I could. I imagined you coming up to visit to surprise me and getting attacked by something before you could reach Ildon. Even after Tildy’s father, Castamir, guided all of us to shelter in Angrenost’s tower while the knights went out to find what kind of dark creature was causing the sound, I couldn’t get your voice out of my head. What if that really had been you, and I never saw you again? I miss you, Mama. I miss our life back before everything changed. I’ve tried fitting in here; I really have. But I still just feel so different. Take my best friend, Tildy. She’s been so very friendly and nice to me and generous with her things and her time. But she’s a Vourkehardt, a noble who lives in a big palace. For as long as she’s lived, her hobbies have been jousting and tea parties with the other noble girls. Tildy is becoming a squire next year, probably for the Tari of Idunia herself. She’s defeated veteran jousters with just one arm, and everybody I know admires her and expects great things from her. She talks so confidently and speaks and writes so well. Meanwhile, every time I talk, I can’t stop hearing my accent. I’m not talented or brave or pretty or well-spoken like her. Just hearing whispers in the fog makes me nervous, and seeing children my age get injured makes me feel sick and want to run away, instead of standing and fighting for my friends. Every kid I’ve met wants to be some kind of knight or brave warrior, while I couldn’t imagine something I’d want to do less. I just feel so out of place here in the big city. Sometimes I lay awake and cry and wish I could run back home into your arms. But I know I can’t. I promised you I wouldn’t come back, and I don’t want to break that promise. I promised you that I’d make a life for myself here, and that I’d find something that makes me happy. Some days, I wish I hadn’t made that promise. I was only five or six . . . I could be content doing just about anything. Now all I want to do is to see you again. I’ll keep trying, Mama. I want to make you proud. I’ll keep trying things, and I’ll keep smiling for you. Somehow, I’ll find a way to fit in here. Please write me back, won’t you? Love, 𝑅𝑒𝓃𝒾𝓇𝒾𝓁

Curious how the 15 people on Reddit found LotC.

Somewhere in the wilds of Azuras, an elven hermit raises a glass of honeyed wine to a dwarf who was once a bronzed brother-in arms.

Reniril Zimrabar had no interest in drinking or fighting or gambling, but she clapped her hands and danced around anyway. "Yay, Aedie!" She chirped, making a mental note to come and support her cousin's endeavor. That is, if she could keep the date in her head long enough to remember. The event promptly slipped out of the flighty girl's mind just as quickly as it had entered as she spotted a friend in the distance and scurried over to gossip with them.

A gentle, chilly breeze caressed Solveig's skin, and as she slowly drifted back to consciousness from sleep, she supposed that she had found herself in another dream of her now-distant homeland. But something was not quite right; rather than the rustle of the wind through the trees and the chill of the air, she could hear a strange droning whine in the direction the cool air came from. Slowly, she opened her eyes. In an instant, she was fully awake, instinctually pushing back on her feet and sending the chair in which she sat crashing back into a wall, which clicked and turned into a cabinet. To her left, there was indeed no winter breeze, but instead a small device that whirred and sent pallid air drifting in her direction at a constant rate. Solveig massaged her head, looking around her in confusion. In front of her, a strange signboard sprawled. On it was emblazoned a peculiar sign. She leaned forward to read: TAKE NOTE OF EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE IN THE MODERN DAY, REAL WORLD, PROBABLY 2026. YOUR MOST-USED OR FAVORITE CHARACTER APPEARS DIRECTLY WHERE YOU ARE, RIGHT NOW... Solveig looked down where she sat in bafflement. Around her, mysterious devices sat, jumbled with sheafs of pure-white paper that spoke of "summons" and "petitions." Her eyes narrowed. Had she been summoned by some strange ritual then? Glancing up, a map caught her eye of a territory wholly unknown to her. Fear began to eat at her. This all felt so real; could it really be some fantastic dream? And if it wasn't, how could she hope to make it back to her children and her darling husband? She stood abruptly, moving around the desk at which she had sat and then froze as a person in an adjacent room swiveled to look at her and open their mouth in confusion. Turning, she grasped at the door handle and tugged, but the door would not budge. As the person in the other room began to rise and approach, Solveig turned on them, drawing the aurum dagger at her belt, the one gifted to her by Nicky so many years ago now. "What is this?" she spat. "Where have you brought me, demon? Send me back. Now." The stranger wasted no time in calling security, and after a brief attempt at flight, Solveig was promptly tracked down by the police, tased after a tense standoff, and taken to the police station, her dagger and other curious personal effects confiscated. In her jail cell, she curled up, desperately trying to go to sleep and to wake back up in her cozy home next to her husband . . .

It depends on how relevant it is to the RP I'm doing. When I was actively on the run from Idunia, I didn't use soulstone at all for several days because using CT as a hub/hangout spot to avoid detection feels cheap to me. Likewise if I'm on some kind of timer or the travel is otherwise important to the RP, then I'll go by foot/horse. If I'm just bouncing between my regular RP spots looking for RP though, I'll soulstone since 99% of the time, I don't encounter road RP anyway.

Jin sat on his bed in his room, staring down at a copy of the missive posted all around Kurai-Kuni and wondering how things could have gone so wrong so quickly. Only a year or so before, there Jin had stood with Naesan-Gun in the streets of Alduun in front of the clinic. "All life is precious," the Won-In had wisely intoned to a rapt Jin, who, though he gave pause at Naesan-Gun's beliefs regarding this 'King,' had become excited at the prospect of traveling with Naesan-Gun to become a Heaven Guard, to protect the helpless, to learn the old ways of the Won-In that his mother had seemed so keen to prevent him from even hearing. Then, just a few days ago now, Naesan-Gun had tried to kill a defenseless child. Not just any child, but Jin's own yeodongsaeng - his little sister, Sora. As Jin sat there, once again his fingers balled into fists, nails beginning to dig into his own palm. Again he bent forward, eyes squeezing shut as tears began to drip down onto the sheets below. For the first time, however, in the isolation of his room, a whimper escaped him, one built up from days of standing strong for his sister, his eomma, his nation. Now that the whole sordid affair was over, Jin felt like blinders had been taken from his eyes, and he was seeing the world clearly for the first time since he had met the accursed Naesan. From the very beginning, this stranger had been violent, dismissive of the ways of Kurai-Kuni despite his very life having been spared when it rightfully could have been taken for attacking Holly. It had taken him no time at all to appeal to Jin's ego, to whisper to him of secret truths that his parents and mentors didn't want him to know. And Jin had believed all of it, without thinking critically even once. Because it was what he wanted to hear- that he was special, that he, a half-Won-In and half-Oyashiman half-elf, understood what it meant to be Won-In better than his own full-blooded Won-In mother. Even when Sora had warned him how untrustworthy this man was, he had brusquely dismissed her, demanding that she not interfere in his own private business. A sob escaped Jin's slumped form. Because of his own guileless ego, his sister had nearly died. For the umpteenth time, Jin longed to rewind the clock, to dismiss Naesan's words out of hand as the ravings of an insane stranger. Or at least to have been there when Naesan drew his sword on a ten-year-old child, to have beaten the man back himself and been the one to drive his dagger in, to see the light leave the Won-In's eyes. No sage was he - only a con man who had duped Jin and received the death a charlatan like himself deserved. And now this brother of his had appeared out of nowhere, declaring war on Kurai-Kuni and a death sentence on Jin's own mother. Slowly, he straightened, catching his breath. No more would he be a stooge for the plots of others - and no more would he hold any patience for the ways of the Heaven Guard or their 'King.' In his zeal to connect with one side of his heritage, he had nearly abandoned the other half, and that was something Jin now knew he must not do. Because he had rejected the Oyashiman part of himself in favor of a radical Won-In, the war in the mainland had now reached the shores of Azuras, and it would continue to rage unless Jin took responsibility and finished what he started. "You almost killed my sister, Naesan," Jin whispers in the dark, his voice now perfectly even and full of vitriolic confidence, "Now I swear to you before all the spirits you rejected that I will be the one to kill your brother."

Dear Mrs. Zimrabar, You don't know me, but the name's Angus, and I'm one of the mailmen here in jolly old Ildon. Your daughter Reniril came to me and told me how she had just moved here from your farm to stay with your big-city relatives, and how you had asked her to send letters back home. She brought a bunch of pictures she'd drawn of her adventures so far, and she was awful keen on showing me all of them and explaining them. It's a slow mail day today, so I offered to write up an explanation of each of the drawings for you, as Miss Zimrabar hasn't learned her letters well enough to write a whole letter yet. Drawing #1 - Race in the Fields Drawing #2 - Apples and Odors and Ologs, Oh My! Drawing #3 - Oh, To Be A Pirate! No doubt it won't surprise you to hear that Miss Zimrabar could have drawn and told me stories all day, each more fanciful than the last, but I think that these three best convey to you how she is adjusting to life in Ildon. She seems to me to have settled in well, already making friends, and she is an inquisitive young lass with boundless energy and an appetite for learning. I will be teaching her some basics in how to swim in the next day or two; with the city itself built on the water, being able to stay afloat is a necessity here, and it will enable her to board and explore some of the ships that are moored farther out in the bay. Perhaps I might even be able to send her out to deliver mail eventually, so she can earn a bit of an allowance. I will be sure to remind her to write you every week and will help her out in writing until she can write well enough to do so on her own. Miss Zimrabar sends her love (and hugs and kisses). ~Angus of Ildon

Bronze Band adjacent party mentioned in 2026, we are so back, boys.

Reniril Zimrabar falls to her knees and asks GOD why He gave her a skygod that would be at work during that time.

As Solveig lay next to Nicky in warm, comfortable darkness, somewhere between sleep and dreams, a memory from the isle of Kalldur rose unbidden to her mind . . . a chance encounter with a small cursed child, her gentle mother, and her enigmatic father. Solveig remembered how well she had gotten on with the woman--Rhianwen, was it? Solveig was surprised she could recall the name--and how she had hoped it was merely the first encounter that would lay down a friendship with the couple, who seemed to so delicately walk the line between gentle kindness and cold hostility. But no, like so many other things on Kalldur, it had been but a single meeting, and the family had vanished into the immense continent of Azuras without a trace. For a moment, Rhianwen's warm smile, Khelman's clinical fatherliness, and Halom's inquisitive and cheerful face rose to view in her mind's eye as plainly as if she had met them yesterday. Like as not, she would never meet them again. Solveig slipped into slumber, her memories of Kalldur melding with dreams until nothing was left.

When Solveig hears of the woman's death, she knows little else to do but to light a candle. Watching its flame flicker, she reflects how little she truly knew of the other in the end. She never knew a name - the moniker of Aloisa Barclay would mean nothing to her, much less any of the other aliases that followed in its wake. Nor did she ever hear the woman's story - neither any of the good deeds done in life nor any of the wicked ones done in the unnatural half-life that followed. Nor even, really, had she heard tell of the good deeds of the one she knew - the one called the Martyr. What she did know, however, was the actions of a single day. A warm smile given on a day when the world was at its starkest and coldest. Succor in a hostile and uncaring world. A single act of kindness, offered without much consideration of its import, which reshaped the world around Solveig into somewhere worth living again. For that, the Martyr would always have her admiration and love, such as it was. So, although Solveig scarcely knows the woman--not her name nor her life, not a relationship long enough to call her a friend nor deep enough to truly reckon with the impact of her loss, neither knowing which god to pray to nor even what to ask of whichever god would bend ear--nevertheless she bows her head for a few moments and mourns her, just as she had mourned the couple whom she and the Candleborn, at the behest of the Martyr, had sought unsuccessfully to rescue. One didn't really need to know someone to mourn them, after all; it was enough to recognize the senseless loss of life and to grieve that the world should continue on without stopping to mark the death of one of its own denizens. After a few quiet moments, Solveig rises and continues on with her day, remembering well from this and so many other tragedies to cherish her children and never to miss an opportunity to remind her husband of her love. Before too long, the Martyr's sacrifice joins the dusty annals in the back of her mind along with so many others who have fought and died in the periphery of her life. There the candle sits, burning for a time, giving shape and warmth and coziness to the area just around its flickering light. And then, minutes or hours later, without any attention paid by the very world to whom it gave light, it snuffs out.

Reading the posted order on the wall of a building in rain-slicked Kurai-Kuni, Jin hopes that peacetime will give the warriors he looks up to so much time to finally train him. As he reaches the final part of the notice, he looks forward to spending a moment or two to honor An Cheong-Won, the grandmother he tragically never had the chance to meet.

Instantly outpriced before even placing a bid . . . we live in a society.

Dance of Eternity by the songstress, Bloom-Bird I had no dancing partner at the ball, Was forced to watch as others danced with grace. Much worse, I had no prospects – none at all – But then approached a strange but smiling face. Though others showed him naught but rude disgrace, He took my hand, said, “May I have this dance?” And soon I laughed and smiled in his embrace, Forever grateful that I took that chance. Each falt’ring step, each shy but tender glance Enthralled me, though the band played faster yet. And from those fumbling figures came romance, Chaseéing ‘til we turned a pirouette. Until the end of time, ‘neath starry sky, I’ll dance with you, my darling Nickolai. OOC: Art by the amazing @Cally. . . yes, this whole post was just an excuse to show this art off.

Is that a real bid? 😔