September open log

[emet_sulk]

🧙 WHO: Emet-Selch and YOU
⚔️️ WHAT: Local Ascian attempts to catch fairy coins and also dons his old robes for anonymity
🕒 WHEN: Throughout September
🗺️ WHERE: Lestari, Camelot (see prompts)
⚠️ WARNINGS: Necromancy but otherwise none


1. Bright-eyed and Bushy-tailed

"A fairy coin?"

The old man nods. "They wake around now when the weather grows cooler. Would you catch one for me? You should be able to find them in Lestari, if memory serves." His eyes crinkle at the edges as he smiles. "I'll be fine without you for a day or two. I really would like to see one before I die."

Emet-Selch can hardly refuse the request. Surely he can be excused from visiting the old man for a day in order to fulfil a request like this? It's with this trepidation that he sets out on the journey there together with the Elphame Traders. When he arrives, he has to pause and stare at the incredible city, before belatedly realising he's blocking the way of those arriving behind him. He hastily moves further in, but he continues to stare at his surroundings and pay little mind to where he's wandering.

It seems that he'll have to partake of these...fizzy lifting drinks in order to catch a fairy coin. Well, the traders are paying him and others to try them so he supposes he may as well make it easier on himself.

How hard could it be to float anyway? He used to do it all the time.

...As it turns out, once he starts drifting upwards, that there's no easy way to propel himself through the air when he lacks his usual magicks. Emet-Selch flails about a few heads above, spinning in slow, lazy circles as he tries to snatch on to something as an anchor.

"Curse this dratted...!" he growls out. He makes a swipe for a strut and just misses, the movement causing him to rotate well out of reach. The Ascian utters a string of expletives in a foreign tongue - not his native language for once but Ancient Allag.

2. Gathering the Undead

Being a necromancer, Emet-Selch inexplicably finds himself involved in the ritual to obtain ashes of the dead for the cauldron. Isolating one of the walking dead is the easy part; it's bringing them back that's difficult.

Those on the road to the Land of Rot will see an amusing sight: a robed man in a mask arguing with a skeleton.

"Do you want me to take you apart? No? Then I suggest you keep walking!" the man says irritably. He steps back smartly as the skeleton makes a swipe at him then jabs his finger in its blank face.

"I command you. Now, keep walking. I would rather not carry your foetid bones in a sack."

And to think that he could freely command the souls and spirits of the dead in his home world... Why must they be so disobedient here?

3. Secret Ascian Man (🗡️ if engaging at night)

The robed man is back. In fact Emet-Selch has taken to wearing his old outfit on his excursions into the city. Though the garb garners a few stares, it's far more preferable to the open whispering and looks of judgement. Neither his crime nor his face will not soon be forgotten.

Perhaps you spot him in the middle of the day buying groceries. Or perhaps you run across him at night, sitting on a bench staring forlornly at the stars. It's during the latter that another masked man swaggers up and brandishes a sword at Emet-Selch.

"Hearken, fiend! Your time is at an end!"

There is a moment where he seems to not have heard. Then his head slowly lolls to the side and he stares at the vagabond. Sighs.

"I'm not in the mood," he tells them, returning his gaze to the night sky. The vagrant seems miffed and moves forward to thrust the tip of their sword near his face. Before they can speak again, Emet-Selch stiffens and growls.

"I said, I'm not in the mood."

(As ever, if you have an idea you want to run by me, please feel free to PM this account or drop a comment on the CR meme.)

Comments

[luciing]

As the jars descend to him, he extends his hand from his cloak, taking one of them in in the palm of his hand and allowing the other to remain hovering near to where the stranger lands. Somnus' elevates the level of his gaze; all movements of his own slight and precise enough to be ergonomic, but oddly mechanical.

"Somnus." He answers, his voice lowering now that the relative distance between them is no more. "Yourself?"

[emet_sulk]

"Emet-Selch." He lands...clumsily. Like a deflated balloon, vestiges of the odd floating sensation have not disappeared entirely. He tries to to take a few wobbly steps forward but it's like walking on reduced gravity. At least he manages to reach his jar and take it out of the air.

"'Somnus'..." That name would not be out of place amongst the Garlean people. Since he doesn't trust his inconsistent ability to move, he nods to the other man. "I will remember this favour."

[luciing]

With the task finished, they needn't spend more time within the cavern-- at least, Somnus won't. He takes a step away, his shoulder pointing towards the man, where he pauses to give a brief nod of acknowledgement.

"Think nothing of it. These fairy-coins are used to provide safe passage for the dead across Avalon from the equinox."

So the Traders say. In any case, it seems he believes it to be worthwhile to mind them for such a reason.

[emet_sulk]

"So I hear. I wished to see them myself for that very reason and this request gave me the excuse I needed to come."

He rubs absently at his eyes again. They still glimmer with the coin trapped behind their surface. It is...not uncomfortable. But it's unnerving.

"If I need more, perhaps I shall call on you again," he remarks, shaking the jar slightly with a faint smile. They're probably busy. He doesn't expect to run into them again whilst he's here.

[luciing]

"Until then."

His head dips in what may constitute as an acknowledgment that he's open to working together in the future. But for now, their little fairy coin assignment is over, and Emet-Selch's glowing eyes are his issue with which to contend.

Somnus departs.