this is Salem, a land filled with magic and maladies. It is a place where witches and their elemental familiars gather, a home to legend and
lore that predates time itself. Yet of all the wicked and wonderful stories the past can tell us of, the most magical are the ones yet to happen.
This is Salem - this is the start of your very own journey. Welcome to starfall
Starfall is an animaga witch roleplay set in mostly modern times. Members play as witches in a world plagued by monsters, where the only safe spots are walled cities. Starfall strives to be a character-driven roleplay with expansive lore and a highly interactive plotline. We want to allow members to
create and look back on a magical journey, and mold the site and its plot as their characters grow.
[attr="class","gearcore"] When Zeph thought he'd spotted movement in the water, he elevates his broom to fly just a bit further from its surface... just in case whatever the thing was decided it wanted to leap out at him. Spock, creeping down from the crafter's shoulder and towards the tip of the broom, appeared similarly suspicious. The low visibility and minimal research he'd been able to do about this place beforehand had him on edge.
"Bringin' croc food wasn't high on my list o' priorities, mate. Didn't wanna make myself a bigger target for the wildlife," he answers Heath while keeping his eyes trained for any more ripples. And, sure enough, he spots some.
Spock growls and erects a metal wall with her fortress technique, bisecting the space between the humans and that thing beneath the surface. It wasn't tall -- just high enough to be seen over the muck.
"There's somethin' in there..." he warns, though, for the moment, the waters show no more hints of life. That is... until the wall he'd just created begins to get pushed over sideways, unsupported by the damp earth beneath. His hand darts forwards to magically right the structure, but he doesn't plan on wasting much mana on holding it up. "I hate this fuckin' place already," he mutters.
The arm (if it could be called an arm) which reaches over Zephyr's wall is neither scaly nor humanoid -- definitely not a lizard man by anyone's definition. As the appendage begins to pull the rest of its form over the meager structure and disperse into the muck on the side closer to the unfortunate cryptid-hunting party, it becomes quickly apparent that this is, in fact, a disturbingly large mass of leeches, eager to get a taste of the fresh blood which just stepped into their home.
Post by Billy Kasparian on Sept 29, 2018 0:31:50 GMT
Items: n/a Scrolls: woodshaper: storm, n/a Techs: single shot, n/a
@heathen admin
@spoopy boys
The wall that acted as a barrier was... well it wasn't very good at its job. Given the terrain though it was not expected to be very well put together though and he figured this was the best that could be done so quickly with the swampy earth. The thing looked like a swarm of gross bugs that had congregated into one super being mass of bug. Ew.
"Ew." That was all BIlly said as the things came creeping around the wall and closer to the party. They dispersed into the water and appeared again closer to them. Well this was very... annoying. Stupid bugs. "This is not the kind of creature we wanted to lure out. How annoying."
They were in a forest swamp area so plant based magic would probably work the best. He poured his mana into the surrounding trees. He used PLANTSHAPING - WOODSHAPER’S GUIDE: STORM to harden the leaves like knives and force them towards the stupid things pointing his arm in their direction as the leaf based knives soared through the air.
"Maybe all this fighting will draw out our real target? Think positive guys! Lizard man. Lizard man. Lizard man!" He tried to start a chant that none of the others would probably agree to do. Well maybe Spock because she was the best but the other three probably not.
Dr Puddy on the other hand didn't seem to care much about this commotion. She sent of a Single Shot from her mouth at the creatures but didn't seem to really care much about fighting. She just liked to destroy bugs. It was a cat thing.
when the villain is to lazy to go very far from the crime scene
[attr="class","victoriousscroll"]Something was hiding in the waters... Caleb could somehow feel a fifth presence as they walk along the swamp. Everything about this place was making him uncomfortable. The young man looks around to try to find something... anything. Anything that could be hiding here somewhere. This definitely wasn't the time to be panicky about it, though.
A barrier suddenly forms around them, and too be honest it wasn't helping matters around here, even though it was amazingly crafted and cast upon. Well what could one expect from the amazing mechanical that was Zephyr? Aria coos as she looks around the barrier. She didn't want to tell her opinions out loud to the others, though, because it would feel as though she is offending them.
Somehow, though, something else was offended. A pack of leeches suddenly start to advance towards the group. Caleb shivers uncomfortably, almost backing away, but he didn't give an act of running away from the group. They were leeches, for Salem's sake! They had to be eliminated! The young man closes his eyes, though his mind wasn't properly aligned yet, before sending a quick breeze of wind to try to blow the leeches away.
...Oh well. If that didn't work, though, Aria could just peck them off. She loved bugs. They were tasty.
Then the black haired man -- whose name apparently was Billy from what he had heard a while ago -- started chanting, somehow trying to call out the Lizard Man. Aria chuckles while pecking on the bloodthirsty bugs. Was that supposed to call out the cryptid or something? She asks with another small giggle.
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Post by heath ambroise on Sept 29, 2018 4:03:10 GMT
Heath’s skin crawls and he’s so goddamn grateful for Zeph’s and his wall. The sight that awaits him is even worse, confirming his and everyone’s suspicions that this place sucked. Leeches. He had expected that but for them to form together into some kind of cohesive structure. Sinclair hissed angrily agreeing with his witch’s disgust. They were both properly skeeved out. “Last time I checked, leeches weren’t that intelligent!” he half says, half yells. There was something so disturbing about something he just assumed as thing that existed to eat, with probably no eyes, to be intelligent. While he wasn’t sure f there was anything bad about leeches, you’d get tired with all of them sucking blood out of you sure, grouping up together was a no go.
The pinkette takes a step back and Sinclair tries to pin leeches to the barrier with shards of ice. It works as well as you’d think. After the barrage of leaf-like knives though, he’s not sure they have anything to worry about anymore. The breeze from before is back but he’s already cold from watching a mass of leeches act as one. He watches the sharp wind throw back some fucks over the wall. “Lizard man! Lizard man!” he attempts loudly, but not very enthusiastically. “Please show up quickly before more sentient leeches show up.” He sighed. He then eyed Billy for a moment before adding, “When did you learn that?” He didn’t remember seeing Billy use plantshaping. He was too used to watching the guy pulls out an endless supply of vials from his back pockets.
“Maybe the smell of dead leeches will entice it as well?” Sinclair says, looking over at Caleb’s familiar before moving to stand next to his own witch. He didn’t feel comfortable scouting ahead with the knowledge that a mound waiting for a transfusion was or well, had been lurking underneath the surface. Suddenly Zephyr’s idea to bring a broom was starting to sound smarter and smarter. At least in the air they would avoid any kind of…these attacks from the ground. Heath kicks over a leech that had fallen too far from the pile and shudders. He waited, not exactly ready to move. Maybe that was enough, or, more likely, all the magic had chased off their target if it was even nearby. The wriggling of a leech is the final straw and after a moment he continues down the path, eager to move away from what had just attacked them.
Billy's leaf blades and Heath's ice shards do a decent job of dissuading the leech mass from approaching any further. If fact, many of the leeches become so distracted by the blood of their own brethren that they cease pursuing the witches entirely. There are, however, a few dozen which continue onwards, breaking off from the larger mass and swimming towards the witches in an attempt to feed. Unfortunately, the lizard man does not appear to be lured out by the chanting and commotion. [break][break] (ooc: for your viewing pleasure)
[attr="class","gearcore"] "Have I mentioned yet I hate this place?" Zeph stresses as the leech mass rises from the swamp. Unfortunately, he can't make the wall much taller with the weak, waterlogged earth that's available. Following Billy and Heath's example, he instead goes on the offensive, sending slender metal spears shooting up from the ground wherever he spotted leech movement.
Spock offers a few barks to the rhythm of Billy's chant before Zeph hisses "Don't encourage 'im," and her contribution quickly devolves into cackling laughter.
After the worst of the danger is dealt with, Zeph again pulls up his atheneum interface to check on what his mechanical crow had encountered. The answer, though, was a bit disappointing, as the visual input appeared to just be more of the same. Just as he's about to look away, however, a vague blur flashes across the screen. The crafter's eyes narrow and he quickly begins fiddling with some controls in the corner of his interface, changing the course of the avian contraption to try to get a better look.
Post by Billy Kasparian on Oct 4, 2018 5:10:37 GMT
@ swamp bois
@ swamp bois
"What's not to like? Deadly leeches, damp air, lots of mud... its like everything you could ever want." Those were all lies of course. This was a terrible place unless you wanted to be like a creepy bog witch. Actually bogs were much nicer than this stupid swamp. Bogs didn't usually have sentient leech swarms that were like weird fusion transformer things. Stupid swamp. Can't let that show on his face though.
The leaves had been pretty effective at least. The creatures seemed to be turning on themselves even though his chanting wasn't working with the stupid lizard man. Where the heck was he/she/them. Billy was starting to get annoyed to be quite honest. Maybe he should just throw something with a little more... sound quality. He did have that sonic potion he'd been working on. With a swift throw he launched two red vials containing Sonic Bomb in front of them at the little swarm that had broken off to attack them. Hopefully this helped.
In the mean time Dr Puddy was using a barrage of Single Shots at whatever was coming near them trying to kill as many of those damn leeches as she could. She really did hate these things and seemed to quite enjoy watching them pop whenever she managed to strike one. Thank you magic for allowing for this fun time.
"Learn what? The chant? I just made it up silly!!" he hummed totally purposefully missing the point with Heath's question. He'd been pretty adept with plant magic for quite a while now. He really didn't care to get into it now but it was time to find the damn thing and like... hurry up so we can kill you lizard man. Buckle up ya sons its about to get cryptid! Or something. Whatever.
As the squirming leech mass quickly self-destructs and becomes a non-issue, he air is thick with the scents of blood and burned leech carcasses. Lovely.
[break][break]Though Zephyr would not immediately find the source of the mysterious blur in his interface, if he were to review the recorded clip from just a few moments ago, he just might be able to see something resembling scales.
Heath only grimaces as the leech mass turns on itself and he is glad when it stops moving, like, well, a mass. That was beyond freaky. The fades and the last of the little fucks are blasted backwards as Billy throws up some kind of noise maker. Whatever. It was loud, without warning, and if the swamp didn’t understand they were here before, they certainly did now. As Zephyr is fiddling around, the pinkette pressed Billy further, irritated at his friend. “Not the chant, the leaf blades thing.” Duh. Well, not duh. This wasn’t exactly unforeseen. If he’d learned anything it’s that Billy liked to keep his shit to himself.
Not at all bothersome. An admirable quality even. Except in the exact moment that Heath was hot, squicked out, and not in the mood for playing coy. Then again, when was he ever in the mood? He didn’t tend to enjoy playing around but he did so out of tolerance. Vague tolerance…or something. “Hey, I’ll check around us while you fix your bird.” He said, looking over at Zeph before opening his hand and focusing his mana. A small, simple looking cube manifested in his hand before it seemed to float away into the air before disappearing into the fog as it went to do a couple of wide laps around the group.
The journalist then turned his attention to an equally simple looking interface before him and watched the video feed for anything weird, or more leeches. They would notbe taken by surprise again.
techniques: SHARD CREATION spells: THE MODERN ATHENIAN: DRONES items:
[attr="class","gearcore"] "It's not broken, the damn thing just ain't stayin' still." Zeph retorts, neglecting to clarify if he was referencing the crow or the creature -- what else could he call it with such a vague flash of an image? -- which had momentarily passed across his interface.
The blue-tinted screen would have been visible to all, its image swiftly panning left, right, to the treetops above, and to the muck below, but finding nothing out of the ordinary. Zephyr slides a finger across the screen, causing the live video to pause and go back a few seconds in time. Then, slowly reversing the motion, he again reaches the point where the shadow eclipses his view. Slowly still, he tries to mind a moment which might give him a hint as to what the creature was, but it was too close and out of focus for anything definitive. Even so, he could have sworn that texture looked an awful lot like lizard scales. After squinting at it a moment, then having a hurried realization upon glancing at the minimap in the screen's corner, he offers a word of warning as he commands the crow to begin flying back to his person: "Shit-- I think it was comin' this way"
With the leeches gone, it almost looks like the party might get a moment of respite. [break][break] Almost. [break][break] But instead, and with nearly simultaneous execution, the image on Zephyr's screen wavers and blips away from existence just as a handful of sleeping darts shoot out from he shadows of the woods and into the bodies of the witches.
One by one, the party falls unconcious. [break][break] When they awaken under a darkened sky, they find themselves bound and gagged in the middle of a tribal village. The good news is they've found what appears to be a lizard-human hybrid, dressed in decorated robes and bone ornaments. The bad news is he seems to be doing some sort of public ritual with a knife, and the unlucky mission-takers are at the center of it.
[attr="class","victoriousscroll"]Perhaps, of the four of them, Caleb felt the most useless person to ever exist. They keep attacking the leeches, trying to drive them away, but all he could do was just stand and watch the ground being muddied by the blood of a hundred doen dead leeches right below their feet. At least Aria was doing something about this situation, pecking on them and throwing them around; as he looks at the massacre, he didn't even realize he was already starting to back away.
Perhaps he's already having a fear of leeches, but he couldn't show that to his comrades right now; looking away from the sight, he summons a stronger wind once more, sending them to the bloodied carcasses to blow them away and throw them back into the water. The wind does as he commands, and soon enough most of the leeches are finally off the ground.
He looks at the other men shyly and sighs inwardly. I... apologize if someone was hit by that. He signs, trying too hard to even talk to them about it. It seems I'm already having a fear of leeches... I couldn't help myself. I'm sorry.
To the rest of what the others are saying, Caleb isn't paying much attention. He just sits there, deep in thought, not even noticing Aria perching on his shoulder. The young man stares at the ground, sitting and leaning against the tree, contemplating to himself, and Aria simply watches her master with worry. But neither one doesn't say a word, even to the other's discussion.
But, something pierces through him, and it's all too sudden, all too quick; it affects him deeply, though, because his eyes suddenly start to want to betray him now. Dizziness overcomes his senses, but he has enough time to actually check what hit him--
--A sleeping dart.
He couldn't warn any more of them after he is hit. His eyes drop, his consciousness leaves him, and he is rendered unconscious after.
~=*=~
Caleb wakes up a few hours later, sowly regaining his senses. Dizzily looking around, he finds some familiar figers seemingly lying on the ground, as well as others who seem to be standing. One particular person is doing at least a little action; dancing, perhaps?
As he tries to move his limbs -- once he does, they don't move; seemingly suspended -- he realizes something.
We're... tied up.
He realizes he is right once he looks at his comrades, who he can see much clearer now.
The one dancing before them looks like... a lizard, at that...
I just can't breathe right now, the boys are in so much trouble ohmygod
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Post by Billy Kasparian on Oct 13, 2018 15:50:29 GMT
@ swamp bois
@ swamp bois
The beginning of everything was darkness. Light was something that was created afterwords. In the end everything returned to darkness. No light. Not even shadows. Just darkness. Eyes flitter open to find themselves in a body bound to some kind of wooden object. A pole maybe? The ropes themselves aren't tied very well to be honest. The corners of his mouth feel wet and his voice is being blocked. He's been gagged and not in the fun way. Well this is annoying.
Part of having been on the run for years is that panic no longer takes hold. Or at least it has been repressed enough to not take over his mind. First assess the situation. He can feel his familiar is not on the material plane. He can feel his mana pulsing through his body. There is nothing blocking them from using magic it looks like besides their unconscious states from earlier. Good. He looks around to see they are in a village near some kind of altar or something? It is mostly stones. There is a lizard looking man with a knife and some weird kind of costume. Yes. That is who he was looking for. Whose head he needed to mount on the wall. This would be good. He just needed to get out of the ropes.
He could manipulate a vine and add some thorns to cut with way out. That could take to long though. The easiest way was to call on his feline familiar and have her cut the ropes quickly then go on the attack. Hopefully the others would think of something similar. He couldn't spell it out for them since he was gagged but since he didn't really know any verbal spells it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. The next question was the townsfolk. He could hear them ever so quietly. His potions bag seemed to be with a collection of other items near the lizard man with the knife. Potions were out for now until he could get it.
Fairy circle should work. Try and surprise the thing with a sleeping spell while his familiar could raise some hell towards the crowd. As long as this wasn't some super warrior village the people would probably flee to avoid his magic with only guards as well as the lizard guy trying to attack them. Okay time to put this plan into action. Hopefully the others got their shit together and helped.
His feline familiar descended from the inner strata. "Okay pud pud. Ropes first then raise some hell in the crowd.' The feline seemed to be fine with this plan. She was getting to cause a massacre after all. She was lazy sure but she loved the destruction and power caused by their magic. She would play it cool but secretly she was a destruction machine. She used Single Shot at the ropes restraining her witch's arm and at his legs to cut them enough that he could break free. With his arms free he could removed his gag and fire off Fairy Circle #3 at the lizard man letting the mushrooms encircle as large an area as he could to try and put the thing to sleep.
While he was doing that Dr Puddy decided to raise hell. She used Gates of Heaven towards the crowd of villagers. With the darkened sky it isn't nearly as strong as it would have been earlier but the point was to cause chaos more so than wipe out the entire population. While this was going on Billy would go for the potion bag while his team members hopefully got themselves out. He'd use the Blinking Scroll and vanish into a cloud of smoke to avoid the lizard man in his quest for his potion bag. They really made a bunch of mistakes in setting up this ritual. They should have used mana based restraints or a purification circle to bound their magics. Oh well better for him.
