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.
She's all but humming as she bounces down the streets, a literal spring in her step as she makes her way towards the newly opened alchemic solutions shop. Ling is excited about this mission - and really, why shouldn't she be? Really good pay in comparison to many other fledgling missions, medical insurance in case anything goes wrong, the promise of experiements and new experiences - she honestly can't see why so many other witches have passed up on this opportunity.
The shop is soon visible, standing out from the rest of the street with its storefront newly painted a pretty green colour with stylistically asymmetric font declaring its name and potions of all the hues of the rainbow displayed prominently through the window. It looks sleek, it looks fancy, and it only serves to heighten her excitement. She does, however, make an effort to compose herself as she pushes open the door, the soft tinkle of bells announcing her arrival.
"Good morning!" She greets the man who looks up as she walks in with a cheerful smile. "Are you Mr Lavendish? I'm Ling, one of the witches you hired to test your potions. Has my partner arrived yet?";;; not the best starting post but i hope its ok mission info here
Post by ashanti verna on May 26, 2017 11:32:38 GMT
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have i always loved you? have i always known? / have i always loved you alone?
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Asha needed cash. [break][break]
It was dumb and stupid and a silly result of a severe lack of foresight, but she needed money to make her dumb decisions work. She had sold a lot of her more valuable items within the first week, and despite being a witch of the Helios Knights, they had taken her in on "test" basis. What did that even mean? [break][break] But she'd found a way now, and there was no one that could stop her. She going to test potions! Not only were alchemists cool and exciting (one of her sister's friends had been an alchemist and-- oh, best not to think about the past) but she was going to be ahving fun. And experimenting. And meeting new people who were also into experimenting. [break][break]
And probably not the most morally or otherwise rich, whispered a tiny part of her conscience. [break][break]
Unfortunately, Asha's morals had never quite reached a lower point. She jumped into the shop close after Ling, wondering if the girl in front of her was a customer or her partner for the day. She smiled when she found out. "Yes, that would be me~ Hiya, partner." she said, waving excitedly. [break][break]
Mr. Lavendish greeted them and asked them to follow him behind the curtains and to a more spacious room at the back of the shop, where an assortment of bubbling, multi-colored potions lay on the ground. "What they're meant to do is on the label, just check them off that list I've compiled and rate its effectiveness, alright?" [break][break]
His words were lost as Asha becam captivated by the smell of the room alone.
It's not really my fault[break]blame it on the butterbeer[break]At least your shop is still standing, right?
The silver bells strung above the door chime again as Ling speaks, announcing the arrival of another witch - a girl probably a few years older with hair the colour of moonlight and eyes like the stormy sky. Her expression is friendly and she seems rather exuberant as she smiles and waves at Ling; the runescripter waves back as she wonders if this girl is to be her partner for this mission. She hopes so.
She doesn't have to wonder for long. The older witch confirms it with her greeting, and Ling feels a wave of relief and excitement sweep over her. Relief in that her partner seems nice, excitement in that the other girl seems like someone she could really get along and have fun with. "Hey partner, I'm Ling," she introduces herself again, bright and cheerful like the sun in high summer.
Mr Lavendish leads them behind the curtains and into the back room where a veritable rainbow of potions greet them, ready to be consumed. Ling's eyes widen, awe shading her expression even as an almost manic glee lights up her smile. "Woah," she breathes, gaze darting around the room from potion to potion, only half listening to their contractor's instructions. She nods distractedly as he finishes speaking, completely missing the dubious look he shoots both of them before he withdraws back to the main shop; her focus is captured by a potion just a little to her right - a liquid golden like molten sunlight and glittering like diamond shards.
With great effort, Ling tears herself away from the beautiful, mysterious potions and turns to her partner, reminding herself of the mission. "Which one should we start with?" she asks, unable to keep her eager anticipation from leaking into her tone.
have i always loved you? have i always known? / have i always loved you alone?
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Their girl's brightness is contagious, and Asha finds herself grinning. She would have taken missions like this from the beginning if she had known about the fact that she could meet happy people like this Ling on these occasions. The Knights had not been kind to her, and meeting Ling was good for her soul. She reached out a hand and said, "Oh, I'm Asha." [break][break] By the time they're in the room, even Asha the 'older' party is far too amazed to really do much but be a little stunned and overwhelmed. "Ahhh, they all look exciting" she proclaims, but unlike Ling she seems to have a different way of deciding which one to test first. She starts picking them up and reading their labels, attempting to find ones that sounded exciting. [break][break] "Oh wow, this one's supposed to invert colors when consumed," she says, holding the vial to her eyes. Despite looking clear at first glance, the liquid, upon closer inspection, looks like it has several strands of different colors running along through it. [break][break] Suddenly, an idea strikes. "Hey, Ling. Let's play a game. I'll pick one for you to try, and you pick one for me to try." It would be interesting to go back and forth, and there was no need to have both of them try all the potions. As much as she would love to, a part of her mind still told her that the inefficiency of it all would prove tedious. [break][break]
She puts the vial on her palm and gestured her hand towards the girl, lips turned upwards in a challenge of sorts. One of her hands is already groping around the find the notebook, exciting to jot down Ling's discoveries as she (hopefully) takes the first potion and accepts the silly game Asha has set out. [break][break]
It's not really my fault[break]blame it on the butterbeer[break]At least your shop is still standing, right?
The silver-haired girl grins, holds out a hand, and oh god. Oh god. Ling feels her heart begin to beat slightly too fast, slightly too loud, even as heat begins its slow creep up and along her cheeks as she shakes the girl's hand. "You have a really pretty name," she blurts out, then promptly feels like walking into a wall. At least she didn't say the first thing on her mind? Which, for the record, was a truly embarressing comparison between Asha and moonlight.
Thank the gods for the timely intervention of Mr Lavendish. And also the potions. The potions. If there was anything enough to distract her completley from the pretty, pretty witch that is her partner, it's the dizzying array of potions spread out before them, their mystery all but beckoning to be experienced.
"Oh wow, this one's supposed to invert colors when consumed," Asha says, holding a clear-looking potion up to the light, and Ling is suddenly reminded of the labels on the options. And their mission. Distracted again, whoops. Wandering around to the molten gold potion that had entranced her so, she finds the label, eyes widening as she reads. "Midas' touch - this one apparently makes your skin gold and coats whatever you touch in a shower of golden glitter." And the potion to her left apparently gives a person temporary synesthesia-like effects. So many amazing potions - she has no idea which one to try first.
And then Asha comes up with a game, and gods, could the witch get any cuter? "That's brilliant!" Ling agrees enthusiastically, all but bounding on the spot. She holds out the Midas' Touch potion to the silver-haired witch even as she accepts the colour-inversion potion. "Let's hope this doesn't kill me," she jokes cheerfully, lifting the vial in a mock toast then downing it all at once, before any inhibitions (or common sense) can kick in.
And ohhhhh, suddenly, suddenly the world is weird. Like an alien world, where nothing looks like anything it's supposed to because every colour is inverted. Ling stumbles a little, disoriented at how much the world has changed with this simple inversion of colour. "Woaaaaaah," she breathes, turning to her partner. Asha is no longer silver-haired - she is, instead, crowned with a head of dark tresses and skin a strange purple-blue and oh gods so weird the whites of her eyes are black and her pupils are white.
"Woaah," Ling repeats, unable to think of anything else that could sum up the entireity of what she's feeling.
Post by ashanti verna on Sept 16, 2017 16:24:00 GMT
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have i always loved you? have i always known? / have i always loved you alone?
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[attr="class","posttext"] Ashanti blinks at the girl's comment. "You think so? Thanks!" she beams. Her spirits are lifted past the stratosphere with less than six words- her name. It's her name, and it doesn't sound like someone else's, and her violet eyes are not familiar at all. She is no one but Ashanti Verna. No title, no precedence. [break][break] "You had me at glitter," Asha remarked, an excited light going on in her eyes as she hastily snatched the vial from Ling's outstretched hands. She laughs when Ling jokes around, shaking her head as she pulls back to see what the potion's effects will be. [break][break]
She grins at her partner and tosses the sheer-gold potion into the air. It does a few flips before falling back into her hands. "I think there should be a cleansing elixir somewhere. If not, just let me know if it runs out..." [break][break]
Asha begins looking into the mess of potions before she returns with a belt that is full of small eye-dropper like containers of clear liquid. The cleansers. Well, thankfully they're all in one bunch. She lays them out before Ling and picks up a quill as she waits for the potion's effects to begin. [break][break]
She tickles the end of her nose with the feathery bit of her quill as Ling looks around the room, totally stunned. Then she starts writing in the notebook, voicing over with a gleeful, teasing tone. "Potion, probably a success. Remarks? 'Whoaaa'." [break][break]
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notesone smol teasing another smol[break][break]líng lù-xī
It's not really my fault[break]blame it on the butterbeer[break]At least your shop is still standing, right?
Getting the cleansing elixir ready before taking the experimental potions was probably a smart idea - you'd think Ling would have learnt by now to do such preparations before beginning something potentially dangerous, or even just weird. Oh well, she'll remember someday. Hopefully. For now, at least she can rely on her pretty silver-haired partner to be a little more level-headed than she.
Ling playfully sticks her tongue out at Ashanti at her teasing. "Such detail, much wow," she says with exaggerated haughtiness, lifting her chin up and mock huffing at the witch. Though, keeping a facade really isn't her strong suit - the giggles that keep breaking through her composure illustrate that pretty clearly.
"But yeah. Definitely a success," Ling says, returning to ( or at least, attempting to ) the mission at hand. She blinks a few times rapidly in succession, trying to find the words for cataloguing the effects as the scientific part of her brain finally kicks into gear. "The colours aren't completely reversed - there's a bit of a bleed-through with the original colours," she says. "That's probably due to the strength of the potion though." She looks around once more, then shakes her head and reaches for a cleansing elixir. "It's quite disorientating though. Maybe there should be a nausea warning or something," she admits.
Brightening as the world rights itself once more, Ling grins at her partner, excitement brilliant like the summer's sun. "Your turn!"
have i always loved you? have i always known? / have i always loved you alone?
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[attr="class","posttext"] Ash snorted good-naturedly at Ling's comment, deciding that the girl was positively adorable. She wondered if this was what having a sibling felt like but then familiar feelings of guilt welled up inside her so she decided to turn her back to the idea entirely and focus on the mission. She'd come back to it later, she promised herself. Despite knowing, of course, that she never would. [break][break] Instead, she turned to the notebook and wrote out whatever the girl was telling her. "Mmmhmm," she caught herself saying. "I wonder what the long term effects of this potion would be like...." They hadn't been asked to test the long term effects, but her mind wandered to all edges of possibility: what if they gave the potion to a child? What if Ling's inverted colors where Asha's normal colors! She did not know. Could she ever find out...? [break][break]
But she turned back to see that Ling had already downed a cleansing elixir. She returned the toothy grin and handed the younger girl the recordbook in exchange for the vial she had previously picked up: Midas's Touch. She'd never been one for riches-- a week or so of traveling through Salem on a ramshackle rickshaw will do that to you-- but gold was aesthetic. [break][break] She drank it quicky and found that it had a terrible itchy sensation as it went down her throat. Without realizing, she had grabbed at her throat. Sticky...she coughed out a puff of gold dust and looked at Ling in disarray. "What happened?" she asked, but her voice came out like the flu had descended on her--- raspy and barely there. [break][break]
Worst of all, when she spoke, it'd become clear that the only thing that had turned to gold was the inside of her mouth. [break][break]
It's not really my fault[break]blame it on the butterbeer[break]At least your shop is still standing, right?
"Long term effects? That... could go a few different ways. We could test that out later?" Ling says thoughtfully, before sidling over to peek at Ashanti's notes. Testing out long term effects would be a good idea, would probably be required for safety labeling - Mr Lavendish would need to know how long the potion would last naturally, after all, and if prolonged exposure would cause nausea, headaches, or other potential health hazards. But, then again, that's probably for other testers to find out - she and her silver-haired partner are just here to record the immediate effects.
She takes the record book Ashanti hands her and watches with wide eyes, pen tapping against her lip, as the older girl downs the shimmering golden contents of the vial. A second, two, and nothing happens? Asha's skin remains ivory-white- But then, she catches sight of her partner's expression, and the realisation dawns. Something - the potion - went wrong.
"Ashanti?" she says hesitantly, a frown creasing her brow as she reaches out to her friend, only to falter as the silver-haired witch grabs her throat. Gold dust puffs into the air, streaking her partner's skin with glitter wherever her fingers have touched; Ling's alarm ramps up another notch when Asha opens her mouth to speak, revealing the interior of her mouth had turned gold.
"Wait, don't touch! Don't talk!" Ling grabs the older girl's hands before she can touch anything else, ignoring the way her own hands have turned gold and instead gently leading Ashanti over to where the cleansing elixirs lie. "Here," she says, pressing a vial into her hands.
"The potion effects wrong," Ling admits as she hovers over her mission partner in concern. "It didn't turn your skin gold - it turned the inside of your mouth gold."
have i always loved you? have i always known? / have i always loved you alone?
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The whole length of her name being spelled out was never a good sign. She preferred Asha, she wanted to say, but then she felt very thirsty like she didn't want to speak at all. The alarm in the girl's voice rang bells in her mind. Don't touch what? It was then she found herself clawing at her throat, and so she pulled her hands away to stare at them in amazement. [break][break] The hands seemed to blink back at her innocently, the lighting reflecting off her bony, ivory fingers and her unpainted fingertips. Ling then grabs her hands and leads her to the elixirs like she's some kind of frail old woman and she offers her partner a dull look in response (which may be hard to catch considering there are flakes of shining gold lining her thin-pressed lips). [break][break]
She frowns and drinks the elixir in silence and blinks when she heards Ling's explanation. "Ehhh? That--explains it. I thought someone was shoving Grandma's terribChristmasmas sweaters down my throat!" She giggles and snorts, the side-effects of the elixir causing her to feel a little light headed. She seems to recover from the ordeal very quickly and gives Ling a knowing smile when she catches sight of her partner hovered over her like a worried parent. [break][break] "Relax. I'm just disappointed mine didn't work out like yours did--" and then she sees Ling's hands which she had turned gold. Possessed by curiosity and a lack of personal space, she leans forward and grabs the girl's hand. "Or maybe it did..." [break][break]
It's not really my fault[break]blame it on the butterbeer[break]At least your shop is still standing, right?
Ashanti shoots her a flat, bland look and Ling sheepishly backs off. Right, no hovering. But it's hard when she knows the potion messed her partner up, and it's hard not knowing how to help beyond giving her a cleansing elixir. Quietly, Ling retrieves the record book she'd dropped and jots down in no uncertain terms: 'potion unsafe, hazardous side effects including: coating the inside of throat and mouth gold, coughing, potential choking.'
That noted, she looks up at her mission partner again, and is relieved to see that the elixir had done it's job, and that the older girl was looking fine again. She joins in on Asha's laughter, though if her own giggling holds a note of hysteria it passes very very quickly. For a moment there, she really had been worried that Asha would choke or something similar.
"Relax," the silver-haired witch says, and Ling finds her shoulders slumping out of the tense line they had been held in now that she's completely reassured there are no more side effects. She grins at Asha and is about to suggest taking another potion when her partner trails off in the middle of her sentence, staring at her hands. "Wha-?" she begins, only to look down and notice the gold coating her hands. "Oh," she says, "oh yeah, it did kinda work-"
And suddenly, it's Ling's turn to blush and stutter and screech to a halt as Asha leans into her space, taking her hands and observing them closely. Her face lights up, heat flaring in her cheeks and spreading across the bridge of her nose until her entire head feels like it's going to explode. The silver-haired girl is really pretty...
"U-uh," she stutters ineffectively, then with as much self-control as she can muster, gathers her suddenly scattered thoughts together and tries again. "Uh, yeah, so the 'coating stuff you touched with golden glitter' part actually worked," she says, and is inordinately proud of herself when her voice doesn't squeak and she sounds relatively normal. Clearing her throat, Ling tries not to think too hard about the fact that Asha is still holding her hands. "Did you- did you want to try another potion?"
have i always loved you? have i always known? / have i always loved you alone?
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Asha knows when someone is trying to mother her because it is a sensation that sort of clings to you the more you try to shrug it off. When she shifts the focus to Ling's hands, the young girl goes quickly from bewildered to reflective... to sheepish?[break][break]
The newly appointed knight looked at Ling's hands for a bit, turning and overturning them on her own. The potion was fascinating, if not for how her throat still felt a little odd. Her mind had already wandered to how long the effects lasted and just how profitable the business of selling party-trick-potions just might be when suddenly her emotional radar detected outside signals. [break][break]Ashanti didn't really consider herself a sharp-witted person when it came to a lot of things-- but when it came to people, she knew a lot more than she often let on. So when she saw the girl flare up, her eyes blanked for a bit in genuine surprise before she grinned a mischievous grin and squeezed both her hands. "It did, didn't it!" She let go of the hands soon after and then straightened herself out to move back towards the rest of the potions stock.[break][break]
"Oh no, that's fine. It's just my luck I ended up with the dud-- ahem!" Her throat was struggling, but she reckoned it would be fine. "Besides, it's your turn..." Ashanti looked at the available potions and stuck a random one out to Ling in exchange for the record book.[break][break]
She had a feeling it was going to be a long and very enjoyable afternoon...[break][break]
It's not really my fault[break]blame it on the butterbeer[break]At least your shop is still standing, right?
She doesn't expect Ashanti to hold her hands for long - because, you know, societally conditioned limitations of personal space and notions of appropriateness and all. Counts on it, in fact, because holy heck Ling needs her brain to stop fizzling out and her heart to calm down. Unfortunately(? - at least, unfortunately for her burning cheeks), things don't happen that way.
It's almost like watching a train wreck happen before her eyes, breathless fascination intermingled with horror; Ling sees the moment her pretty silver-haired partner notices her blush, sees the moment of realisation dawn, quickly followed by mischief sparking in violet eyes. And then Asha squeezes her hands. ( The little part of her brain not falling apart under the monumental weight of her embarrassment and the blood rushing to her face takes note of how attractive mischief looks on Asha's face - which doesn't help at all! )
Thank gods for her continued sanity and her now fried brain, her mission partner lets go of her hands and brings the attention back to their mission. Ling bites her lip in worry when Asha coughs, but doesn't say anything - no hovering. "If you're sure..." she says, taking the offered potion and handing the book over.
The vial is midnight blue with silver-blue flecks, advertised to give the user temporary frost-wings ( which, how cool is that?! Maybe she should look into buying a few of the potions when they're sold - and completely safety tested, of course! ). Downing it quickly, Ling feels a pleasant tingle of coolness spread throughout her veins, centering on her shoulder blades; peering around ( and almost knocking over a stand in the process ), she's delighted to see the wispy beginnings of wings forming- and a little disappointed when they stay as wispy tendrils of frost, never fully forming into wings.
"That one's a partial success, I think," Ling says cheerfully, downing a cleansing elixir. "Not the full effects advertised, but still pretty cool. Your turn!"
have i always loved you? have i always known? / have i always loved you alone?
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Ashanti is too much in her own world to notice Ling's lip-biting. She takes the record book with a strange level of excitement and begins writing as soon as the potion goes down Ling's throat. To be fair, she's not exactly writing anything at all related to the potions or their effects. [break][break] Instead, on the next page (which Ling will inevitably reach when it's her turn to record Asha's trial) she writes in neater-than-usual-cursive: Ashanti Verna, Ouskirts District 4...
[break][break]Distractedly, she looks up to find that the potion has already begun taking effect. Ling's frosty tendrils nearly knock down a shelf of potions ("Hey!" she calls, belatedly but with good intention, and reaches out an arm that never really has to do anything). Ashanti is mesmerized by the way they seem to materialize out of nowhere, and Ling's words faintly register. She scrabbles something down and thinks she has it right. Honestly, she's beginning to lose focus.[break][break]
She grins when she hears the familiar phrase and takes the vial out of Ling's hand. It's bubbly and green- it's supposed to make you breathe out completely "safe" flames, with additional scales to further the dragon effect! She vaguely decides she likes dragons. The liquid is hot on her tongue and she nearly spits it out, but forces herself to swallow. It's thick and warm, and she nearly makes a face. But then the feelings are overshadowed by the sensation of scales popping up around her chin and eyes. She giggles instead. [break][break]
Asha blows out air, and nearly falls over when green fire escapes her mouth. Eyes wide but lungs still pushing, she tentatively brings a hand to the flames. And they pass right through. "Ahahaaha! It feels like warm water. Success, definitely."[break][break]
All this blowing air is making her feel woozy. Or maybe it's not the air...
It's not really my fault[break]blame it on the butterbeer[break]At least your shop is still standing, right?
Ling watches Ashanti take her potion with all the fascination of someone obsessed with dragons and other fantasy creatures, and all the intensity of a scientist in the making; her pen flies across the page as she scrawls down the results: 'scales begin to appear after approximately 5 seconds, no evidence of discomfort or pain, colour of scales are silver - possibly matching with injestee's hair colour? appears to be a pleasant sensation...'
She's unintentionally distracted by her partner's giggling, looking up and grinning at the frankly really cute sound. ( She also tries to ignore, to not much success, how pretty the gleaming silver scales look on Asha's skin. ) "That's so cool!" she exclaims as the other girl proceeds to blow out a spurt of swirling fire, luminous green but apparently not hot if the way Asha passes her hand through it is any indication.
Not only does it look really cool, it also looks really fun by the way her partner is smiling. Ling bites her lip again as her gaze wanders over the another vial of the same potion sitting innocently within reach. "Mr Lavendish wouldn't mind me trying it too, would he?" she asks, more to herself than anything. "Besides, more trials means more variables accounted for, and also more reliable results, right?"
She takes the potion.
Heat spreads through her veins, almost like liquid fire except that Ling knows it isn't dangerous at all. It then fades, leaving behind a pleasant warmth, and the oddest tingling on her face - probably the appearance of the scales. She breathes in, eyes widening in awe as a tiny spurt of green fire splutters out over her tongue; "Asha," she says, turning to her partner, absolutely delighted. ( She stumbles a bit, which is kinda weird, but the world is weird anyways and it's not like she's crashing into anything. ) "Asha. This is awesome. I'm staying like this forever."
A giggle escapes her mouth, accompanied by another swirl of fire. As she said, so cool.
