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RRDC - The Drifting Castle
Topic Started: Apr 13 2010, 03:32 PM (354 Views)
Jet Blackbeard
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aka Bear
During the height of Queen Teodora's reign over Valua there lived an eccentric nobleman by the name of Baron Jarod Forsythe. He was wealthy beyond measure due to the unusually high concentration of Yellow Moonstones that existed in the rocky soil beneath his family's ancestral holdings. His home, a palatial fortress known as Castle Forsythe, was built atop a rocky outcropping overlooking the barren landscape of northern Valua.

~

The mining trade kept the Forsythe family at the forefront of Valuan nobility for many generations. And yet their eccentricities assured that their influence within those circles would be severely limited. It was widely believed that insanity ran in the Forsythe bloodline and members of the mining trade who had direct dealings with their patriarch concerning business-related matters would readily endorse this notion.

Jarod Forsythe was to be no exception. From an early age it was apparent that he'd inherited more than just his family's fortune. Ever a recluse he withdrew from society and retreated to his isolated castle located in the mountains of northern Valua, leaving his business dealings in the hands of his underlings. There he was free to indulge in whatever bizarre hobbies he had to amuse himself with. Rumors and speculation into the exact nature of said hobbies was a favorite topic of discussion for gossip-mongers.

Jarod never married. His only contact with other people came in the form of servants that had been hired to maintain his sprawling estate. There was a high turnover rate for household servants as very few of them could tolerate their employers delusions for any amount of time. He did however offer handsome pay in return for custodial service so there was always someone willing to fill the vacant positions.

Yet no matter how many people came and went through the Baron's holdings firsthand accounts of his demented exploits were few and far between. When a servant left his employ they seemed to vanish from society as well. It became widely rumored that they had not actually resigned, but rather met a grisly end at the hands of Jarod Forsythe.

Thus the urban legend of the Bloody Baron were born.

~

Shortly after the Rains of Destruction ravaged the Valuan continent all contact with Baron Forsythe were lost. The cartographers who were dispatched to map out the post-destruction landscape reported that the cliff that the baron's castle had been built upon appeared to have sloughed off from the rest of the mountainside and plunged into Deep Sky. Naturally he was presumed dead along with many other citizens and his name was quickly forgotten. Only the fictional tales of the Bloody Baron remained as the proof that Jarod Forsythe had ever existed.

Two years passed......

During a routine voyage between North Ocean and the growing colony in Valua a moonstone freighter made a startling discovery. Its crew witnessed what appeared to be a large castle floating lazily across the sky, drifting with the winds. From the heraldry that appeared on the tattered pennants that still clung to its aging battlements it was confirmed that the Castle Forsythe had survived the Rains afterall. A landing party was sent to investigate the scene but the castle's gates were locked tight and they could not gain entry. Attempts to hale anyone who might be within were made but there was no response. The castle appeared to have been abandoned.

Shortly after this startling discovery was made the staff of the newly rebuilt Imperial Library began circulating flyers throughout the various Sailor's Guilds announcing their interest in hiring adventurers to pay a visit to the drifting castle on their behalf. The baron's family had had in their possession many rare and valuable books that the library felt it was imperative that they recover. A sizable bounty was offered to anyone who could acquire these invaluable tomes for them.

~

The Round-Robin Dungeon Crawl has officially begun! The posting order for this event will reflect the order in which you agreed to participate. From the date given the first participant will have one week to make his entry post. Each consecutive post will be due one week after the former until all participants have made their entry and then the posting order will repeat until only one of you is left.

The posting order is as follows:

Raiu
Gordreg
Karl
Sargoth
Nex

Raiu's opening post is due one week from today on Tuesday, April 20th. Gord's post will be due precisely one week after Raiu's post is made. If you are able to post before your deadline please do so. Waiting until the last minute isn't necessary.

I will post in the Chat Box to remind you who is up next and when their post is due.

Your opening posts should detail your arrival at the Imperial Library in Valua and contain a brief description of how your character came to be there and what interest they have in the assignment. Feel free to describe your surroundings or converse with NPCs but please refrain from elaborating on the nature of the assignment. I'll be doing that myself once everyone has made their initial posts.

With that I leave you to your writing. Good luck to you all!


Edited by Jet Blackbeard, Apr 13 2010, 03:55 PM.
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Raiu
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"You know, its almost ironic. I ran away from Valua to get away from my controleing parents and now I am back here, on the border of Upper Valua and the palace in order to aquire more money." Alba's (Now known as Dawn) audience, the bricks in the walls and the trash barrels, listened in interest to her words before going back to being just normal things. "No, its not funny. Really its frustrateing! I'm telling you, I don't want to be here, I really really don't want to be...Fine! Go back to your medoricracy!" Ah, bipolar Dawn, always fun.

Dawn was fumeing silently when she entered the Imperial Libary though that quickly changed before she went up to the counter and waited for someone to come and allow her to ask about the job. As she waited she looked at the design of the building, the grand arches, the small reading nitches, the portrats of many former rulers of Valua and the grand artistry. Really, she almost felt out of place in her garb, a light long slieve tunic, a black leather vest and britches tucked into her boots, with her fenceing foil, a dangerous weapon in the right hands, in a scabard on her hip. Oh well, what ever gets the job done.
Edited by Raiu, Apr 14 2010, 10:20 PM.
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Gordreg
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The stare that greeted Octavia Gnack as she stepped inside the entrance of the Valuan Imperial Library was met with a chilly return glare; her natural and artificial eyes both glowering over at the portly gentleman who’d looked up from his book and seen her enter. For a moment the man seemed poised to comment, a look of mild disgust etched upon his noble features as he stared at her metal-plated face, but instead he gave a curl of his lower lip and returned to his literature with a haughty huff.

Brushing a thin streak of blonde hair away from her, Octavia scowled at the man with the side of her face still able to make such a motion. Was it the metallic plates in her face that had so offended that stuck-up prig, she wondered; or the thought of the burned and scarified flesh of her face beneath them? And in any case, what right did that sybaritic mass of blubber have to criticise her augmentations as deformities? She’d only come to the library due to the potential offerings afforded by this assignment, not to be gawped at by the fat and stuffy without true appreciation for mechanical advancement. Her arm hissed gently as her mechanical digits clenched tight, then dropped open once more as Octavia waltzed further into the library, seeking out the assigned meeting point for the assignment.

The assignment. The only reason she’d been drawn out from her comfortable development role beyond the north-ocean fringe and back to the city of her birth. Though the Baron Jarod Forsythe was rumoured by all accounts to be a bloodthirsty megalomaniac, his library had also been rumoured to contain a few scraps of old-world parchment beyond price.

And more importantly still; Castle Forsythe had been owned by illustrious ancestors before the Baron Jarod. As a family they’d had a long history of eccentricities and insanities; Lord Alger Forsythe was a name that had inspired terror across the continent in the years before the Valuan unifications, and Dame Fabiani Forsythe was historically suspected as the most likely candidate behind the bloody assassination of the second Emperor Francisco. But it was the lesser known Vincenzo Forsythe that had drawn Octaiva’s real interest to the mission. A collector of old world treasures, he had reputedly owned many ancient devices as well as his more well-known collections of Pyryn tablets and Sylvis pottery. Some of that collection had been sold by later Forsythe descendents and had ended up in the Valuan museum after the unfortunate accident that had taken out Vincenzo and a whole castle wing, and other items rumoured to be in the collection had been long proven either to be fakes or mere imaginings that had never actually existed.

There were also, however, some items rumoured to have been in the collection that had never been seen or sold. Octavia stopped for a moment, reaching into her pocket and drawing out a tiny scrap of singed paper. The handwriting upon it was scrawly and looped erratically, the ink faded and the style of spelling itself indicative of an era two centuries ago. And yet, to her, the simple phrase upon it was enough of a reason to abandon all her current commitments and travel to join this investigation.

‘pon ye condefer of yon moonf light, resultf shin’

A thin smile passed across the half of her lip still capable of the motion, and Octavia tucked the scrap away as she continued looking for the meeting room.
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Ranger
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Previously Nex Terren
Henry looked around, a question on his face. Tall, and with his shoulders drawn in on himself, he looked like an odd stick of a man in that grand library. His brown coat, tails dusting the ground lightly, was thanks to a ball in which he did not fare well. No, he was rejected, and sent off with the coat, the men there disregarding him as a mistake, and a bit of an idiot. Certainly not someone worthy of their time. He had figured out that he ought never venture back into such society, such halls again. So… why was he here? He… well he didn’t rightly know, except he remembered…

Men pushed past him down the hallway, and Henry simply let them push him aside. Surely the library would need somebody like him. After all, he had worked on a fishing ship; Henry knew both the sea and hard labor. Surely they could use one of those two. He needed this job, as he didn’t have a coin to his name. True, perhaps he could have looked elsewhere, but there was something about that name…

Frowning, he tried to place a fleeting memory, trying to ignore the invisible ships that fought around him, covered in calculations and measurements. Try he might, but half of his mind still commanded those battles.

’…Crylhound maneuver coming up short… defensive weakness to the subport… fifteen by eighty degrees, explosive damage clipping the damaged armor… two-dozen lives lost, ship now favoring the right by a ratio of twenty-eight by thirteen…’

“I… excuse me, I…” Henry stuttered, tugging on the half-machine, half-woman construct that stood before him. He perplexedly shifted his gaze to the ground, as if set to bore holes into it with sheer concentration and worry. “I’m here for that posting… the Baron’s…” He looked back up, face going blank. “No, no, that’s not right, I—are you the one I should talk to?”
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Tatlin
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I Have the power and the Speed!
Normally, Vadik did not take the Insurrection into the Valuan Harbor. He preferred to keep his ship out of prying eyes, and keep the Black Fleet from out of the public eye. But when he must, he traveled below the clouds, and flew into one of the numerous ones that were, shall he say, Black Fleet friendly. And this is what the ship did now, cruising practically noiselessly below the fog and cloud of the Imperial City.

A dim yellow light shined down on the Insurrection. Vadik stood on the deck, allowing the cold air to pulse through his clothes, hair, and body. He was practically oblivious to the messenger who came up behind him. The messenger stood nervously, not wanting to interrupt Vadik, in whatever he was doing. However, Vadik soon heard the nervous clinking of armor behind him, and spun around, grasping the mail that Vadik received.

He flipped through them all, but a strange flyer caught his eye. It requested adventurers to investigate one drifiting castle...

Vadik had known the rumors, ever since he had been a child. The Bloody Baron, the Forsythe family...The rumors of the castle once it had been rediscovered. His eyes shined with excitement suddenly. Things had been dull for Vadik, and there was nothing like a childhood mystery that stirred him up...

The Imperial Library's halls echoed dimly, but the voices never seemed to reach any level that could be distinguished. Some had said that in these halls, people who had died years ago could still be heard in a seemingly endless echo. Vadik quickly paced down the halls, looking for some sign of the meeting place. His mostly black garb gave him a floating appearance, the cloak almost slightly hovering over the finely polished floors. From underneath the brim of his hat, he caught the sight of a strange woman, seemingly part bionic. Another man had just walked up to her, and they began conversing.

Vadik quickly took a seat at one of the nearby tables and feigned reading a book. He would watch this pair and perhaps see if they were involved.
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Jet Blackbeard
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aka Bear
Bear stood in the library's foyer, his shaggy head turning this way and that to take everything in. In the short years since the Rains of Destruction had wiped out most of Valua's culture the few seeds that had been planted to restore it had begun to bloom.

The library was located in a side-wing of the Imperial Manse and every book, manuscript, scroll and scrap of parchment that bore any sort of literary significance had been assembled here. Subjects ranging from flower gardening to military tactics could be studied here. Epic works of poetry sat on shelves next to children's stories.

Bear wasn't one for reading but he understood the importance of what the librarians were trying to accomplish with this expedition. That was part of the reason he'd accepted.

As an Air Pirate one could have assumed that Bear was after treasure, pure and simple. And from a certain point of view that was true. But the wealth of this adventure wouldn't be measured in gold or jewels. What Bear truly sought was the experience itself.

His adopitve father, Chief Hogan, had a saying; "Life's a journey, not a destination." and Bear had lived his life up to this point according to it.

If there was booty to be found then so much the better. But to go searching for it within a floating castle? A floating castle that had a long and bloody history and was possibly even haunted! Well, that was an offer too good to pass up as far as the Viking was concerned. Heck, he'd have probably done this for free.

Bear walked over to where an outlandish woman with prosthetic legs and an unassuming young fellow were standing. "Hey, how are you?" He asked politely to a black-clad stranger reading at a table as he passed.

"I don't suppose the two of you are here for the expedition too are you?" The burly Glacian offered, breaking the ice with a little small talk to lighten the somber mood of the library.

(OOC - Let's do another round of meet-and-greet posts and then I'll get down to the business of explaining the mission in further detail.)
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Raiu
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Dawn sighed as she waited for someone to come who she had to talk to for the job. "By the Moons, its the Imperial Library but no one will even show up when you ring the bell." As she waited, she scanned around the large foyer, looking for others who were in for the job. By the looks of it, there were plenty and varried. There was a woman who seemed half mechanical being clung to by a strange man who looked like he just woke up in a lower Valuan gutter. There was also a guy that just seeped of trouble and a strange man with a horned helmet...The word that came to mind was barbarian..."Swell, looks like it won't be easy money..."
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Gordreg
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Still no sign of an obvious meeting room, and she’d now checked out most of the ground floor. Octavia harrumphed, beginning to wonder if she’d made a serious mistake by deciding to come here. If the library hadn’t thought hard enough to indicate just where they wanted all potential hires, then perhaps as an organisation they would be simply incapable of organising a successful expedition. She really did have half a mind to just walk away completely from this ineptitude. Perhaps she could even persuade her backers to send a rival expedition she could lead herself, unencumbered by library methods or demands for mere literary tomes? She gave the matter a moment’s thought, only to find her concentration rudely broken by a stumbling voice in her ear.

Octavia turned her head toward this source of irritant noise, and found a stalk-thin man tugging against her mechanical hand. He seemed somewhat nervous, his gaze shifting periodically toward the floor then back, and he stuttered as he spoke. Octavia’s lips drew slightly tighter, her real eye staring almost as hard as her false one toward the stuttering fellow.

“Probably not.” She answered bluntly, pulling her mechanical hand from the man’s grasp. “As - I think - I’m here for that posting myself. But the librarians have neglected labelling their meeting places half as well as their indexing systems, and their front desk is negligently unattended… if this is the best organisation this Library can muster, I’d hardly think them fit to plan such an investigation with enough care and attention to ensure success.”

She glanced up, and snorted contemptuously toward librarians in general, then looked back to the strange man.

“Still, we may yet be surprised…”
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Tatlin
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I Have the power and the Speed!
Vadik was sure of it now. These had to be the people for it. Things were just way too strange to be library-goers. One compatriot was seemingly cyborg...and the other stood like a burly bear, who passed him a greeting as he walked by. And sure enough, the large man began to speak of the "expedition". Vadik stood from his chair and quietly closed the book, then strode over to the group. He talk off his hat and nudged his way into their conversation.

"My apologies, but I couldn't help but notice you mentioned a certain...expedition. I suppose you're all here for it as well?"

As Vadik began to speak, the strange and meek man began to saunter away, perhaps frightened by the large crowd of strange characters that now surrounded him. He mumbled something and then hurried away down a row of books. Henry stumbled for a while, and soon found himself on the other side of the massive library. He glanced around at all the books. He seemed to be in some sort of section dealing with fauna. Henry grabbed one, and began to read absentmindedly. Another battle began to play out in his mind, and he grasped his head in pain. Why couldn't he shake such memories?

Unbeknown to him, a particularly rotund lady stood in the aisle just to his right, bustling around the books. She was curious on the best way in order to grow particular plant life within the dark and dreary skies of Valua. And then she saw it, and she jumped with glee. Expertise in Indoor Plants. Her figure bounced up and down, but she caught her dress and fell backwards. As Henry shook his head in pain, he didn't even see it coming...

Back on the other side of the library, a low but clearly audible thud was heard in the distance, along with a quick squeal. Vadik spun around and looked in that direction but dismissed it. Probably a silly woman dropping some of her books. Vadik shifted uncomfortably and spoke again.

"Well, I wish someone would show us what's going on here..."
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