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.
there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying
that i should probably keep my pretty mouth shut
[attr="class","rotation"]
[attr="id","invite"]
It takes the pigeon ten minutes
to arrive with Cassidy's response, and twenty-five for Erin to make it all the way to the address specified in that same piece of parchment. Another five to break inside the apartment. Really, those five minutes are more of a formality. She needs to look for an extra key beneath his welcome carpet and by the windowsill first, if only to try and argue that was how she made her way in. It's been, all in all, forty minutes since the idea first sprouted in her mind, which is quite a long time to be holding ideas in the enchantress' modest opinion. Read: not modest at all.
Julius isn't home, much to her chagrin. She was making all this effort to visit, yet he couldn't at least have the decency to be home. Honestly, not surprising if she stopped to consider just who she was looking for. No matter, though. She had waited almost an hour now, five or ten minutes more wouldn't kill her. Probably. She could wait. And, while she waited, she could take advantage of this opportunity to snoop around the athenian's place.
"Wanna see what he's got in his pantry, Siri?"
The kitchen would be only the first of the many places she inspected. Siri, of course, leads the endeavor eagerly. At first, that is. After finding the pantry depleted of snacks—had there ever been any in the first place? "What is Juls thinking?"—the eagerness dulls down, to give place to a much colder execution. She at least manages to find some coffee for Erin to make herself a black serving, while Siri informs her of the contents of the next room.
Erin completely skips what seems to be Julius's room, sure she's not interested in whatever questionable articles she'd find in a twenty-four years old male's den. As she sips at her coffee, she does briefly wonder if she'd find any of Cass's belongings left behind, though.
By the time she hears the door click open, Erin's sitting comfortably in a space she's made for herself amongst the mess of books and scrolls he's got splattered all over his living room. "Welcome home," she greets, gently putting down her cup of coffee, her gaze fixed on a particular article from the magazine she's holding up in one hand. Her pale orbs refuse to leave the magazine until she's done reading it. "Took you long enough."
There were some things best kept to yourself- and if Leviathan had any one piece of advice for beginners to its ranks it would have been that. Julius had taken this advice to heart and, despite now officially being Cassidy Wolfe's boyfriend, still kept some time to himself and his friends inside outside of Leviathan. Extroverted (to an extreme) and passionate (read: tirelessly opinionated), he found himself invited to too many places too much of the time and rarely spent much time inside his flat.[break][break]
When he arrived at the street to see a light on in his living room, he assumed he'd left it on and assumed that worst case scenario, he could probably take on whichever idiot had decided to perch in his house. (Over)confidently, Julius placed a key inside the lock and was relieved to find that it still fit (the landlady, bless her decaying and unflinchingly traditionalist heart, hated him and so he had already assumed that if there was someone in his house, it would have to be a new owner and he'd have to find Maddox and ask if he could adopt one more because, alas, being an anarchist did not pay well). [break][break]
When the dock was unlocked, he shoved it open with a foot, glaring suspiciously into the room with Hermione hovering behind him-- his heart jostled when someone was indeed there, but then settled immediately when he saw a patch of purple hair and bored, cerulean eyes. [break][break] Sighing at her welcome, he turned around instead to lock the door, knowing that the girl wasn't going to sway anytime soon from the magazine she had picked up. He didn't think much about her presence or that fact that he was alone at home with another girl, instead giving Erin a disbelieving look. [break][break] "Really," he finally ground out, the word itself packed with more sarcasm than you'd expect two syllables to be able to hold. [break][break] "Here I thought I'd double checked my demon protection charms." He sighed and gestured airily to the room. "To what do I owe this fiasco," he stated more so than asked, looking over her position as Hermione fluttered into the room and landed on a little hand-made perch that hovered over the dining table.
there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying
that i should probably keep my pretty mouth shut
[attr="class","rotation"]
[attr="id","invite"]
It's very easy to tell when
she's finally done with her, admittedly, not at all informative read: she ends it with an unamused laugh. It just so happens that this ending coincides with the beginning of the apartment resident's own greeting to her. How he chose to take this, she left entirely up to him. Erin did not really care if he took offense or not, despite her being the guest in this situation. Would he kick her out, if she gave him reason to? She hums in thought. Good question. Worth trying out sometime. Obviously not this time; she hadn't wasted all that hour for nothing.
"Try harder. I'm sure you'll get it next time," she answers, matching sarcasm with more sarcasm. The only difference would be that her own tone bears no underlying aggression, though Julius out of all people should know better than to mistake her tone for complacency. The magazine is finally put aside, and Erin rises to her feet—not to greet Julius, but to make her way back to his kitchen. The cup she was drinking from minutes ago is taken with her. "As much as your enthusiastic welcome warms my heart, I'm not here on a social call."
Erin passes by the perch where the athenian's owl familiar rests with a smiling "Hi, Hermione," and stops halfway through the door leading to his kitchen.
"Mallori." There was hardly any need to elaborate on whose name that was, after it managed to fill every single headline, both in Sundial's newspapers and Gale Valley's, a few days ago. Even children surely knew, by know, about the death of Vincent Mallori's wife. Her murder, specifically. "That's why I'm here. I want to talk about what happened in Gale Valley." Her expression darkens, reflecting the fact that this was where the conversation turned serious. There's a frown between her eyebrows and a knot in her throat. Now that she's finally gotten what she wanted, she's suddenly not sure that she wants to discuss the topic at all.
The young witch hadn't been present in the actual celebrations, as there was business she needed to deal with back in Mirrorlight, and so those news and articles and word of mouth were her only source of information regarding the events that took place in the liveliest of Salem's lands. The only undeniable fact was that hissing snakes replaced the night's main prize, and the man's wife was but a corpse swimming in blood by the end of it. "Everyone thinks it was Silvertongue, which goes to show just how many simpletons this city houses. It was a bold move, for sure, but..." Erin tries to present the topic in an orderly manner. She truly does, at first. Once she's started, though, there is little holding her back from skipping all that unnecessary talk that she's more than sure her interlocutor is just as well versed in.
"It just doesn't compute, Juls. Surely it was all set up. Why would Silvertongue purposefully take the blame for ruining the existing relations between Sundial and Gale Valley? But I can't quite figure out who would benefit from all this." There's a lull in time in which everything seems to stop. "Other than us."
[attr="class","jcontent"] Julius doesn't bother responding to her snark, instead using his time to eye the room and wonder if she's tampered with any of his systems. It was a bit of a mess of its own accord, though he felt little shame when he imagined Erin poking and prodding at his belongings. It was hard to feel much when his company was as brazen and unflinching as she was, after all. [break][break]
"Do you know what a social call is?" he asks, plopping himself onto a couch even as Erin gets up to make her way to the kitchen. He knows she'll find nothing of interest in his pantry and watching with mild interest as she seems to return the teacup dutifully to its place. Unless she's here to violently start attacking him, she was here to socialize. [break][break]
Thankfully their definitions and desires of the term 'socializing' aligned more so than any part of their personalities and upbringings, and could bring them together easily. [break][break] Hermione hooted pleasantly at being greeted, and Julius gave her a look which the owl returned with just as more ferocity. She really did grow a spine when the sun left the sky, and Julius was not up for a three-way argument after the day he had had. [break][break] Julius lets her have his bit, but now his eyes on trained on Erin, sparkling at the possibility of an actual conversation. Alas, Erin has picked the wrong thing to talk about and she seems to speed up halfway in between, skipping her biased logic and attempting to force a conclusion too soon. [break][break] "As much as I want to say something," he teases, tone mocking and eyes alight with mischief. "I'll give your biases the benefit of the doubt."[break][break]
Because really, he hadn't had a good conversation in a while. And simpletons, as Erin had put it, sadly did make up the vast majority of the people he had met so far in Sundial. As usual, Julius unquestioningly took up whatever side wasn't being taken up. Agreeing with people on the inside didn't matter- it was important to disagree. Better something debated and unconcluded, then something concluded without debate.[break][break] "Because war makes more money than peace could dream of." The industries, the farmers, the scholars and the merchants would all suffer. But crime would thrive, weapons would be made and information sold at triple the cost of gold. And surely taking someone's life would pay better than protecting it. "If it is Silvertongue, this will be the tip of the iceberg. They'll want to create opportunities for themselves...That being said, the benefits the coven gets from being protected by the concil and the valley are at stake, and those aren't easy to gamble away. There must be something else they're after..." [break][break] But what?[break][break]
And then Erin speaks again and Julius respectfully allows the silence to pass. [break][break] "True. Trevil probably wants a snake hunt now, and Gale Valley would be forced to allow it to happen in the name of Mallori. But if it's not Silvertongue. If they're being framed...why hasn't your precious Dmitri spoken up about anything yet?" [break][break] Ah, he couldn't resist that one.
