Atlas Prime: Byd Chronicles (Fantasy Kingdom- Needs People)

In what sort of feel do you think Atlas should develop toward, as it's primary setting?

A Feudal world, where magic is a mysterious power, and lords/clans seek to rule the land with war (1200's/dark fantasy)	18.2%	[ 8 ]
A Renaissance land, with sword and spell, while royalty strives for the honor of the crown (1500's high fantasy kingdom)	63.6%	[ 28 ]
An Iron/Economic society, limited magic, and those with money rule the new land industry (1800's victorian/punk fantasy)	9.1%	[ 4 ]
A Modern feel, no worldly mystery left, people in power always wanting more (Modernized, high technology/low fantasy)	6.8%	[ 3 ]
Other (Explain your reasoning in the OOC thread)	2.3%	[ 1 ]
Total Votes:			[ 44 ]

[PkmnPrincess]

xxxxx► ＴＨＥ ＢＥＡＵＴＩＦＵＬ ＤＥＡＴＨ ◄

▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄
{Ｌｏｃａｔｉｏｎ} Ferarbor // Sheylith // The Bawdy Nymph Tavern {Ｃｏｍｐａｎｙ} Barkeep {Ｔｈｏｕｇｈｔｓ} "I'm willing to bet that nothing has changed..." {Ｆｅｅｌｉｎｇｓ} Curious

"Death is coming for everyone and everything..."

The man exhaled heavily, the small amount of running had taken his breath away, though he pushed on. Every now and then those dark brown eyes would flit nervously behind him, a soft mutter, and a rune would drop, before he entered a room, the noble careful to buy himself more time. It had only taken three days for the incident to have brought a blade after him. Erelict was like that. Say the wrong thing to the wrong person, cross the wrong family, and someone comes after you, the severity of the consequences being relative to the incident in question.

The sounds of his runes going off, hurried his pace, panic setting in as to how close the killer was. The human practically stumbled through his last doorframe, the mistake of his decision hitting him immediately at the sound of the door closing behind him. He whipped around, and there she was, standing taller than he, her lean frame perched against the ornate wall decor, one Kukri blade in hand, her open one against the closed door. The woman was dressed in white, a hood shadowing her face, the free flowing fabric bound from her underbust to her hips by a brown leather corset, while the rest of the white fabric draped lazily across the tops of her fair thighs. The woman was about to kill him, and here he stood gawking at her.

There was no escape. He had been herded to the top room of his estate, the woman blocking his only way out of the room. The dread brewing within his stomach was only the beginning as the realization and acceptance, that he was going to die tonight, began settling in. He dropped to his knees, tears streaming down his face, as the woman approached with a predatory grace.

"Please. I'll never see her again. Colleen? That's why you're here, yes? Because of the affair? Who sent you? Whatever they're paying you, I'll double it! I'll triple it!"

The corners of the woman's mouth curled up into a small smirk, as she shushed him, the very confused nobleman leaning back from the pressure of her hand, the woman sitting atop him. For a brief moment, relief washed over him, and just as quickly as it had appeared, vanished upon a very alarming, sharp pain within the middle of his palms. His hands felt heavy, connected with the cold floor, the very center of his palm beginning to feel warm, and wet. Those brown eyes glanced over at his hands, panic gripping him, as he realized she had pinned him to the floor with daggers. There was no recollection of her even drawing them. The man began to sob, as she readied her Kukri over his heart. Her cold emerald eyes burned into him.

"There is no definite good, nor definite evil in the world. Only life and death can be definite. Everything else is indefinite. The wolf does not negotiate with it's prey, nor shall I negotiate with you. How I kill you matters only to you, the absolute certainty of your death is the only thing that I value. Moving will only make it take you more quickly. The venom is pumping through your veins by the second. Live the rest of your life wisely, for it has been drastically shortened."

The woman began to bring the blade down with such a confident force that the man tensed in anticipation of the blow, but it never came. Every trace of the woman, and her weapons, had vanished. The man attempted to sit up, his head feeling woozy as the poison began to overtake his body. He felt like he was on fire, though no sweat touched his forehead. His vision began fading in and out, heart continuing to race. Within minutes of her departure, the man was dead upon the floor.

The sound of knocking on wood brought Katarina's attention out of her thoughts and to the barkeep, her eyebrow raising for a moment as she scanned his thoughts, having completely missed what he had said.

"Aye, more of the bread please, I've had enough Ale."
Her last kill had been a few days ago, her client being very pleased with the outcome, had added a bonus on top of her already pricey fee. 'Fracking Politicians.' The elf hated working in Erelict for that very reason. Had the pay not been amazing, she wouldn't have been seen anywhere near there. Most of her jobs came from Cari, but if it happened to be political, it was usually sourced back to Erelict.

The barkeep returned, switching out her ale cup for a cup of water, and placing bread in front of her. His curious eyes scanned her, placing his weight upon one hip as he continued to stare. Kat bit into the food quickly, glancing up at him from beneath her hood. One fair, hand reaching up to cover her mouth as she swallowed her food.

"Can I help you, friend?"

Kat's tone was light, airy, an edge of curiosity to her purr. For a resident of Sheylith to recognize her, they'd have to be immortal, or elven. This man was human. And he was gawking.

"I've never seen elves drink anything other than Kefir, let alone a high elf. You went straight for the Ale, though. You've got my approval, don't be shy if you need anything. A word of caution before I let you be, be wary of the far hall when you're going up to your room. We've got Godfrey Deacon in Location Arrest, and he can get a bit out of hand around elves."

Kat Nodded a thanks, as the human walked away, tending to other customers. Her attention went to her food, and then back to what the barkeep had said. There was a part of her that hoped this Godfrey fellow would test her patience, he'd be in for a rude awakening, and then there was another part of her that didn't really want to clean up that mess, and she had other things to do in Sheylith that were more important than pissing off the city guard. Avoiding the man would probably work out for the better. The elf continued to eat, losing herself in her thoughts, the glass of water touching her lips every now and then, as she sat at the taverns' bar.





"...a darkness that will swallow the dawn."
▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄


Ooc: Here's my novel. *Drops Mic*

[Dorian]

Ariachan

LoVely_Len0rE

Shadow of Sheylith

At this time, another shadow would appear to Mortessa, this one quicker, faster, becoming clearer and shaping more articulately. Considering the vampire, priestess of the lord of the dead, was still tapped into the network of souls, she would receive another vision, another dream like image slipping into her mind. It was a nobleman in his house, running around, a shadow behind him, chasing him, the shadow had no apparent features at the moment, except for, just like a shadow, any shadow, it followed him, staying connected to him. The odor of blood would become apparent, followed by fear, and a cool chill. What did this mean? Well, sometimes the visions were up to interpretation at best, other times they were literal depictions of events which have happened, but they only would appear to those who had a connection to the lord of the dead, nor would they occur unless there was something to them. The man in the vision continued to run, his words muffled, but affair and Colleen, being spoken prominently. Colleen, obviously, not a name of elvish origin, or of the high tongue, was a human moniker, which meant somehow, a human was involved. Affair, could be anything from a relationship, to a business deal, or some sort of foul play or another. Soon enough, the image of a woman in white would appear, stepping out from the shadow, before pouncing the man. Words could be heard, but they were as faded echoes, and thus were garbled, but some chatter from the woman, the sound of her voice, the image of her eyes, her skin-tone, and overall appearance would be able to be seen. Unless Mortessa knew the girl personally however, it wouldn't mean much to discern who she was -exactly-, though there is something to be said for the matter that this vision was much more clearer than the one which happened long ago, reading the present as it happened, was much easier than tearing into the pages of the past, souls which have already moved on, had less of a connection to the mortal world.

As the woman in white walked away from the blurry image of the man, his form faded from sight into the darkness, a glowing sphere appearing where the man once was, indicating his soul was now in the transient space between the lord of the dead's domain, and the mortal world. The man's soul, upon closer examination, within the nimbus of light, had a sort of shape to it, like a circle over top of an archway. It was the man's head, his gaze looking down into what appeared to be a Kukuri, a curved blade of indian origin, typically treated as a utility knife, the wide edge made for an offset in the cut. Perhaps it was the last thing the man saw? If Mortessa were actually at the site of the murder, she may have been able to discern more information, but as it stands, she wouldn't have any way of knowing who the victim is, or how to get there. Nevertheless, if she so decided to inform one of the guards, or one of her companions, Somnus or Glemynik of her vision, they may be able to do some legwork, and know what to look for. The vision began to change now, shifting from the location of the scene of another murder, to a building with a bunch of noise coming from it. The images of the interior of the building, were too difficult to make out, too many souls in one location, too many emotions from a multitude of individuals, disrupting the overall flow of the building. However, three distinctive figures could be seen one of them looked to be a person, a male with long dark hair, pale skin, angry eyes, and a series of tattoos all along his body. He was doing something, grinning angrily, his hands clasping upon a woman, holding her tightly by the shoulders. The woman was a bright eyed lady with sun kissed hair, her lower half remained dressed, but her upper half was revealed, the angry looking man had his hands upon her shoulders tightly, as though he were about to hurt her, and rather she was enjoying the sensation of being hurt, or was entertained by the matter that she was within the angry man's clutches, was speculation at best.

The third figure was one which Mortessa had seen before, an individual black rags, hood, and cloth over their face, covering their features. It was the murderer, the murderer was standing off to the side, looking upon the other two images, as though they were simply spectating, they had no weapons, and knew enough to keep their face concealed, was the angry figure the murderer? Or was the image of a person in rags, somehow representing those who had been affected by the murderer? It goes to reason this was speculation as well, due to the fact, the elven woman, and the angry man both cast long shadows from their bodies, the shadows overlapped, making the darkness in which the murderer stood, allowing them to spectate without being seen. Unfortunately for Mortessa, she couldn't see the killer's face, or exactly whose darkness it was which the murderer was standing in, this due to the shadows overlapping, or what it meant for the murderer to be seen without any weapons, but in full garb. The murderer couldn't be just standing there in plain sight to see right? Someone would have reported something by now, so the image of the person in black rags must be symbolic of something else. Was this angry person about to harm, or maybe even kill this elven woman with bright eyes and sunny hair? Was the image of the murderer in the shadows, a symbol of imminent death which hasn't occurred yet? While being a priestess of death did allow Mortessa some insight as to the acts associated with the lord of the dead, the answers were rarely so cut and dried.

Whatever Mortessa decided to make of the vision was up to her, but there was certainly something to the symbolism of it, the dream like trance she was in, and the souls which brought these visions to her, were not exactly known to be liars, or con artists, no, these were the voices of the dead, souls in service to the deathly lord, reaching out to anyone who had the ability to hear them, and would be willing to listen to them. If nothing else, Mortessa would be able to clearly identify what she was seeing now, and what she had just seen, as a separate incident from the one of the girl who was in the stone room earlier.