prompt
Strange things appear in Destiny City all the time, so nothing seems out of the ordinary about what might look like discarded trash, broken glass, or pieces of broken jewelry. If anyone were to lean in for a closer inspection, they might find a beautiful, gemstone like object that is shaped a bit like a star. They come in an array of colors and almost seem to have some sort of light sparkling in them.

Note: Each character can only find one of these! While you may choose to keep the strange star fragment, once you acquire one you can interact with a special event NPC and exchange it for another item.

Rakovanite tried to be more careful after the recent ambush. He'd never been one to be expressly rash, but perhaps there was something about routine that led him to expect things to occur as he intended them to. Because of how infrequent trouble was, he'd grown comfortable in the expectation that things would progress as they usually did. And that was simply not the case. He needed to remain alert and wary and all times, with eyes and ears open for signs of any intrusions.

It didn't help that the places he usually frequented on summer nights to do his business had been altered, making Rakovanite feel almost as though he was in an unfamiliar place... The streamers and banners and decorations were all brightly colored and glittering, clearly harmless. But they weren't familiar to him, and even such a slight and generally warm difference made the lieutenant... wary. And not without due cause, he thought. The nights were warmer, and the celebrations seemed to encourage people to keep later hours. There were festivities well into the night sometimes, and it felt like people were in groups more often than not. That made them less appealing targets.

Rakovanite was still not a night owl, himself. He didn't prefer to be up late. But when he needed to tend to his quota, sometimes it was the only way, and it felt as though he had to stay up later during the warm summer months to find targets that were alone and unlikely to put up a tussle.

He was fortunate tonight, in that he didn't have to dedicate many hours to the hunt.

There was some party going on down one of the sorority-fraternity blocks not too far from campus (and so not too far from where Nataniel lived). He didn't want to be someone anyone would notice (especially not anyone looking for the likes of him around these gatherings), so he kept his engraved medallion on him, smothering his aura to no more than a civilian. He'd wised up himself, after the attack. That knight had had a completely dampened aura, and Rakovanite had done nothing to hide his own, making him an easy target. He wouldn't make that same mistake twice. Three hours a day was more than enough time to tend to his Negaverse duties.

Then all he had to do was wait in the alleyways between the houses for one of the drunk boys to have to take a piss. It was no longer than an hour that he'd met his quota, and he'd only had to select two targets to fulfill his needs. He did change locations between them, wary of getting caught after the first, but it was still almost no trouble at all.

It was during that short jaunt between parties that he'd noticed how much debris seemed to be scattered about wherever he went.

There were the requisite littering of red solo cups, a handful of foam plates, used silly string, streamers, noise makers, small light-up toys, ripped decorations- just things littered about wherever the Star Festival parties seemed to touch. He kicked refuse out of his path as he walked or delicately stepped over bits that seemed like they'd be a bit too messy to touch. There were a few... scattered gems among the garbage.

One was a green charm shaped like a star hanging off the top of a fence. It wasn't completely unlike the ones he'd found last year, but... not quite the same, either. He tucked it away in his space pocket.

And then came the actual gem of the night, a glistening trinket swirling with colors. It looked a bit like glass that had been infused with warm orange and purple lights. At this time last year, Rakovanite would've thought it was a toy, but this year... This year he wondered if it was some artifact with magical properties. Most of the strange things he found came with some vision of how to use them, but when he picked up this one, there was nothing...

Perhps it was just a toy, but in case it wasn't, Raovanite tucked it away, as well.

(WC: 694)