Ninjay

"I wonder if she still needs a king..." a man who had never experienced the horrors of the Underdark, and just happened to have met the Mori Queen but once during an unrelated eventline, quietly muttered to himself whilst examining the brooch that had been given to him and others.

“Sparrowhawk.” He had followed the instructions to a T. The candle, the circle around it, everything. It all came to a head with that single name, spoken in a whisper barely audible amidst the gentle winds which tugged at the trees near the clearing in which he stood. For a second, there was nothing. Over that second, a horrid anxiety built up. Had he done something wrong? Had it not worked? What mistake had been made? How- Thankfully, his fears were soon dismissed. From the circle of salt around him, bubbles began to rise, a frothy seafoam nigh identical to that produced by waves crashing upon a shore. The sight stunned him, at first. But as the foam rose higher and he found himself surrounded by a towering wall of salt water, Jay regained his bearings. He knew he had done it correctly. He had expected this ritual to summon someone - an old friend. From where, he knew not. All he had was the assumption that it would be from somewhere else, outside of the world he knew. Perhaps, from the stars. And so, he looked up. It was not until he felt the ground fall away from under his feet that he realized he was rising into the air. Once more, doubt set in. Was this supposed to be what was happening? As he rose higher and higher, he came to a realization; the ritual was not going to result in what he had expected. “CONAN, YOU MOTHERFU-” The exclamation was silenced midway through, as he who shouted was ripped away from the mortal plane he was well acquainted with, and sent screaming through the cosmos. In his wake, a pleasant breeze blew once more, the only sounds left being it and the rustling of leaves around the now-empty clearing in the woods. Elsewhere, in the cosmos… P a b a r u s The Directorate | Cobalt and Conspiracy The realm of an interplanar trading syndicate “What is this, amateur hour?” It had been a normal day in the office. Papers detailing salt shipments to and fro, earnings reports documenting quarterly profit margins from the varied planes, et cetera. A microcosm of a stale kind of hell, arguably, but that is another topic. The normal operations and busy drone work of the office came to a halt, though, when a man clad in armor arrived in the center of the room, heralded by a screeching flash of light that seemed to protest such a defiance of the laws and ordering of existence. Spreadsheets and stationary were blown about, leaving a mess of the tables in his wake - a nightmare for the desk jockeys who would have to clean it up afterwards. Jay stumbled forwards, disoriented. He was met not with gawks, nor glances of bewilderment, but… muted annoyance from the workers in the room. They did not look upon him as some otherworldly visitor, some being who had just manifested from nowhere, but some trifling thing which had come to cause inconvenience. Some even just gave him a look, grumbled slightly, and went back to their work. Only one addressed him. “Come one, man, look at the mess you made! Why’d you have to come through acting like it’s your first time? Are you some kind of idiot?” A gesture was made by the fellow - balding, slightly rotund, clad in some formal attire befitting one who worked behind a desk - to the disarray which had come to be. Jay caught himself on a wall and turned around, his utter bewilderment hidden behind his helm’s visor, wholly unfit to comprehend the operations he had just interrupted. His head and eyes flung about almost wildly, trying to grasp at the reality he found himself in. “Who are you?! Where am I!? Where is Conan?” The man squinted, staring at him for some time. “Do you even know where you are?” “NO!” “... Oh. It really is your first time.” Realization arrived. The man scoffed, and looked over his shoulder to his coworkers. “Hey! Look at this guy! It’s his first time! He doesn’t even know where he is! Ha!” A pudgy finger pointed at him as some snickering was heard around the room. “This is Pabarus, rookie. We run the interplanar spice tra- NO NO NO NO-” The words had fallen on deaf ears. As the man turned back he saw that Jay had hastily set up another candle and poured another circle of salt around it. His eyes widened as he watched Jay snap his fingers and light the candle. “NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OFFICE!” “S-SPARROWHAWK!” He had been told to whisper the name, and the first time he had. This time, though, it was more a stuttered scream as he saw the ritual to completion. And as his inadvertent greeter rushed forwards to try and stop him, once more did the oceanic bubbles and froth rise around Jay, accompanied by a gale which tore through the room, sending even more papers and sheets flying about. Whereas his arrival had caused a small mess, his departure had sent the entire floor of the building into a state of havoc. It would take hours to put everything back in order; one could only imagine the costs in lost productivity that such would incur. Jay, meanwhile, was sent spiraling through the cosmos once again, and found himself in… V i t r u s The World Tree | Lavishness, Liveliness, and Lapses A colossal, inverted tree housing druids and fae This time, he was acquainted with the sensation. He had hoped that there would be a different outcome - and in a way, there was! - but when the sensation came over him, at least it was something which he had experienced and thus was not prone to leave him reeling on arrival as it had before. It was a good thing, too, given that he found himself manifesting upon a branch just a few feet wider than his arm span. Had he fallen, it would have been a long drop. Looking around, Jay came to two conclusions. First, that he was somewhere new. No more desks or paperwork. No office building. Rather, he stood on a tree branch - one capable of supporting a fully grown man. Second, that this was but one of many. Above and below, more and more branches of various sizes hung. Massive sizes. On distant branches, he could just make them out. Buildings. Some standing on their own. Others clustered together. Settlements, towns, entire cities, constructed atop colossal branches connected to some massive tree, with further branches serving as natural connectors from one to another. It was a sight capable of throwing him off, undoubtedly, but he had long been no stranger to the bizarre or unbelievable. After a few minutes of silent contemplation he set off, walking towards the nearest wooden highway that would bring him to one of said cities. As he got closer, he came to realize he was not alone here. First, it was just birds fluttering above, and the odd animal running out of his path. It was when he saw others, though, that another conclusion. He did not belong here. It was clear in all things when he saw the people - their architecture. Their garb. The markings and tattoos their skin bore. The places of worship which sat open and filled with art of animals. The frequency with which he saw groups in meditation or seeming to silently commune with those same animals that decorated the walls walking the streets as if they were just as comfortable there amidst a mortal society as they were in nature. The towering treefolk that walked amongst them. Here was a land of nature, of druids and Fae, of an existence that he stuck out from like a sore thumb. Jay was reminded of a time from nearly a century prior, in which he had spent some months in Nevaehlen on Aevos. He had stuck out there, too, but had been welcomed to some degree, even allowed to sit in on a lesson Scoria had bestowed upon a student and take some notes. But there, outsider as he may have been, his type was at least a known one. They knew of the common man, of steel, of beliefs and ways of life outside of those often taken up by the druidic. But here? Here, he was an alien presence, a man clad in steel and plate amongst those who knew nothing of it. The clanking of his possessions was surely a unique sound to many as he passed. Groups went silent as he walked through the streets - a man in armor of steel rather than wood, who was clearly deaf to the symphony of nature that all around him seemed to hear. By virtue of a particular sword he carried, the animals at least looked at him with some level of comfort, and that seemed to inform the glances of those who watched him pass. An outlander, as he had oft been in his life, but one who was harmless - probably. In any case, he was spared any ire for the time, solely eliciting intrigued stares even long after he had gone by. While not in a panicked state this time, his mind still stressed. Was this where I was supposed to meet him? Did he mean for me to end up here? I knew of his practices, but I always thought he had disliked the idealistic livings of those of Nevaehlen. Unless… the instructions he gave me… . . . Surely he didn’t… He was not sure how long he had walked for when he came to a stop. There, in the middle of the street on that massive branch which supported an entire city, he went about it again. A candle was fetched from his belongings, a circle of salt drawn about it, and the wick was lit. With a sigh, he stood straight, and looked to the sky once more. When he spoke the word again, it was neither a whisper nor a shout, but something closer to a question. “Sparrowhawk…?” Just as before, he was met with a rising circle of bubbles and brine. As many onlookers watched, Jay again bent the laws governing reality, and cast himself elsewhere among the stars. Y i l l i o n The Towered Realm | Spires and Sorcery A realm of infinitely many, infinitely tall spires, where magic runs amok Of the infinite towers that dotted the realm, Jay stood on one which seemed small, relative to the others he could see. Behind him, a staircase ran up, leading to a library. Further up, above the library, a small town. Even further up, who could say. Below, across a bridge which lead to a different spire, a sprawling city lay, the magic used throughout made abundantly clear by the hundreds of different colored glows which could be seen amidst its streets. One could practically taste the vast expenditure of arcane energies upon the air. None of this registered, though. Jay slowly stepped backwards, and sat himself upon a stone-hewn bench. Silently, he stared. First, at the ground some paces in front of him. Eventually, at his own, opened hands. He could not feel his heart beat, nor did he seem to breathe. No thoughts came for a long time, as reality raced to catch up with his mind. When it did, finally, he knew. This is it. This is how to do it. He taught me. His breathing returned - not normal, but hastened. He felt his heart rate pick up, his hands grasping closed and opening a few times. This was it. He could do it now. A rush came over him, as a desire long since forgotten reared its head once more. Dormant for decades, left unsatisfied since his youth and arrival on Aevos, it returned in force. Wanderlust, that old intoxicant he had long loved and long neglected. He rose with a start, and immediately went about conducting the ritual again. ? ? ? Infinite Realms Infinite Possibilities He did not know how long he traveled. He did not keep track of how many planes he visited. Only a handful of fleeting memories stuck in his mind. But he went, from one to another, again and again, taking in as much of the incomprehensibly vast array of experiences that one could find. Oftentimes he remained for only minutes, seemingly more interested in flexing this newfound muscle than learning more of what dwelled in the lands he came across. It had felt foreign, at first, displacing himself amongst the stars. But as he did it again and again, it quickly became routine. In a way it felt almost natural, unnatural as it may have been, as if he had reawakened some muscle memory long buried. Fueled by adrenaline and wonder, he went, and went, and went, and- During one of his jumps, somewhere between the planes of existence, during those moments which seemed both instant and long, his eyes strayed. No longer looking straight ahead to the next realm, he turned to the side. There, he beheld it all, to the extent a mortal mind may be capable of. Infinity. The universe, at its unfathomable scale, with the infinite realms of possibility within it. Infinite strife. Infinite peace. Infinite change. Infinite stagnation. Infinite joy. Infinite suffering. Infinite wells of all that comprised the experiences of life. He was small, he thought, and all he did, all he could ever do, would be but a drop in those endless seas of existence. What difference could he ever hope to make? . . . It was shortly after such thoughts that another breeze passed through the clearing. With it, did he return. Resolve had been tested, and been found sufficient. However small, however pointless, however insignificant in the grand machinations of existence, it mattered. It had to matter. Even if nothing may change on the cosmic scale, it would make a difference for him. For those around him. For those he knew, who were all as small as he was. And to him, that was enough.

A private (no metagaming) letter is penned to the author (@Morigung-oog); Attached to the letter would be some hot cocoa mix and a drawing of Wyrvun with his top guy, Sir Misha the Baywatcher.

Somewhere in the world, amidst a semi-retirement that saw him decently removed from the strife and war which engulfed the rest of the continent, did an aged man read an errant copy of the missive. In an age some decades past, he had known and been known amongst those leaders who had laid the foundation of the current day, the Imperial Princess's own father and grandfather being two of them. His role had been small - he was but an ally and friend to many of them, doing what minor contributions he could - but still, he had served a role in it, and thus some fragment of responsibility fell to him, so he reasoned. Mercy. As he often did when reading a publication from the Imperial family, his mind drifted to another writing, the final of the former Emperor. 'I was a child shown no mercy who chose to give mercy.' You were certainly inconsistent with such, and seemed to have done a horrid job at instilling the virtue into your progeny. He had never met Joan, and likely never would. Still, the Princess's writing resonated with him, and thus some thoughts were had on her behalf. Innocence has been made a victim already. Mine, yours, everyone's, even if they will never see or admit to it. Still, perhaps mercy may not be destined for a similar fate in our times. I certainly hope you are not left disappointed in your own hopes, Joan.