>>25603214
Ask what she knows about this new power. What does it do, more specifically than "saved your goddamn ass", what the limits of it are, if she learned anything else. Also let her know that "I seriously have no fucking clue how or why that worked back there, but the fact that it did is literally the most exciting thing that has happened in millennia. Also a little scary."

From the last thread.

>>25603342

Mari's newfound knowledge of the power is fairly thorough. She can write and activate a number of blood sigils, but at steep cost, since the magical fuel for the power is her own blood (and she's still growing, leaving her with less than usual to give in the first place, never mind the fact that if she runs out she will actually die rather than just blacking out for a while).

Different sigils can heal those holding them, harm those standing on them, cancel Talents, or paralyze the person standing on top for hours at a time. However, each sigil, once activated, drains blood from her to maintain itself, whether she wants it to or not. She can't control when they're activated once the sigil is made, either. If it's set to go off as soon as someone steps on it, it'll do that, even if she's currently bleeding out and needs every drop she can get.

>>25603576
Ask her if any measure of her Fleshshaping improved from what she can tell, if she's unsure we can always find a small animal for her to demonstrate if so.

Also inform her we're sure there's a Fleshshaping power she may learn eventually that can undo her disfigurement.

>>25603596

Her Fleshshaping hasn't improved any, no, and she's still weak enough from the bloodloss that warping flesh is kind of taxing.

Your Shade is still hanging out in the haunted forest and has yet to encounter any actual hauntings. He might see more if he moves towards Whisper City itself, but he might also spook local daemons that might otherwise be friendly. On the other hand, if you can't contact those daemons at all, they're pretty much worthless to you anyway.

Hm. Looks like thread might be dead today.

>>25603576
Don't know if TM is evevn still around, but replying anyway.

Cancel talents? This sounds pretty damn familiar. What are the limits of this healing? Can she use it again once she's recovered a bit to restore some of the.. permanent damage she suffered? Could she use it to fix Lark? Can she only use her own blood or just whoever?

As for actual actions, if she's recovered enough that she can at least manage to drink and eat on her own, we should be on our way. If not, then that's troublesome because Girdin most likely won't have the dexterity to assist in such matters.

>>25605717
Agreeing with this.

>>25605717

The main limit on the healing is that only her own blood can be used to fuel it. That said, it only accelerates the process of natural healing. It doesn't reshape flesh, which means scars are there to stay.

She isn't sure if it'll work on Lark or not, nor is she eager to find out. Even once fully healed, there is almost certainly not enough blood in her body to put him back together without killing her.

Mari is capable enough to eat, drink, walk around, and even run short distances on her own. She won't be winning any fights anytime soon, but she wasn't exactly a fearsome combatant to begin with and it's unlikely Sholta or Whisper City will be sending out half-starved Rats or small children to hunt her.

When you say be on your way, do you mean traveling as a group to Whisper City? Mari isn't up to longterm travel but she can take care of herself here for a while so long as nothing finds her, so you could probably head out with Girdin. Who exactly are you bringing with you and where exactly are you headed?

>>25605805

I have two main plans, neither of which I have fully decided on, both of which involve nobody but good old Anomaly.

1) Return to Sholta
After the first episode in Sholta, we decided to just leave it alone, expecting it to mind its own damn business. Since then, they have completely failed to do so, in fact leading a small army against us. That isn't very nice of them. In addition to that, it's possible that Ivan is STILL there, eager to mess with our business.
The course of action? We get serious. We are a powerful spirit (who are they to say otherwise?), they have severely offended us, they know that they have severely offended us, and they know that they failed to kill us with said offense. Now they're going to have a very angry spirit on their hands. Or at their throats rather.
Specifically, we sneak in, we paralyze their count on his throne and put his own sword to his throat, demand that the guards reassemble their "council", then demand full disclosure of their plans, the capture and execution of "Spectis", and whatever else we can get as reparation for their offenses against us, lest we be forced to tear the entire city apart for our dignity.

2) Enter the Haunted Woods
Quite simply that, we enter the Haunted Woods, carefully make our way towards Whisper, looking for all signs of Daemon activity along the way, and, upon hopefully finding some, attempt to persuade them to ally with us.
Hoping another player will have an opinion.

>>25605805
How far away is Whisper City?

>>25605989

Whisper City is about two days' travel from here for a daemon, more like three for a mortal.

>>25606022
Lets check out whisper city then as the other anon suggested. We don't know what the situation is there and we need to asap. I think Sholta can wait, and yeah we will go alone with our shade.

>>25606058
Sholta is practically on the way though. My plans there are hardly time consuming, so I'd have hoped you have concerns other than time constraints.

>>25606102

Sholta is in the opposite direction, actually. Their army wasn't sent into Kestis territory to hunt you, it was just poking around their own territory, which means you were basically on their doorstep when the hunt began. Now that you've spent several days moving towards the haunted wood to keep out of their search radius, you're a solid day or two past Sholta City.

>>25606220
Precisely why I suggested going to whisper. And of course time constraints matter. They always will one way or another.

>>25606220
Oh, that far? Well damn. Ivan is probably gonna run again, but if he is, he'll have done so already, which voids one of my main motivations for going to Sholta. And if he hasn't, he probably isn't going to, which means it can wait. Let's just head towards Whisper then, moving through the Haunted Woods with open eyes and our Shade nearby to increase our scanned area by the tiny bit we can even see in there.

>>25606295
>>25606290

Right. You move on towards Whisper City. As you approach the heart of the haunted wood, the trees grow thick and choked enough that navigation becomes impossible unless you stick to the road only, which is fortunately quite deserted. Every now and then you come across the rotting wreckage of a caravan or the torn remains of a pack, but never do you find any corpses. Not even bones.

Whisper City itself stands in the middle of a cleared section of forest, the city's requirement for lumber having taken its toll on the surroundings. It suffers from five years of disrepair, floors giving way as timbers rot, walls beginning to crack and crumble from lack of maintenance, interior rooms ruined by exposure to the elements as doors and window shutters are left hanging on their hinges and bits and pieces of roof collapse.

The mighty gates of the city are held fast and the decay is not nearly so advanced for its walls to have begun to crumble, so once past what of the city has expanded outside the walls, you are forced to scale the masonry. The guard towers are abandoned, and neither you nor your shade see any trace of anyone manning the defenses or even squatting in the guardrooms.

In the ruined streets below, however, you can see movement.

Descending into the abandoned town, you find ghouls roaming the streets. Pale-skinned corpses that move with feral grace and agility, they climb through the rubble in small packs, searching for something. Prey? You've not seen a living person since you left Sholta's territory. If they're hunting, they're not likely to have much luck.

>wat do?

>>25606574
Any landmarks or other notable elements?

>>25606704

As with basically every Margellian city, the city's center is dominated by a large fortress, which is surrounded by a court, a counting house, a market, and other assorted places of note. Anyone's guess as to whether or not these places are still as important as they look.

>>25606737
Send the shade to scout the fortress. We'll just wait here. For safety.

>>25606770

Your Shade scales the crumbling wall of the fortress and slips inside. On the other side of the outer wall is a courtyard swarming with ghouls penned into multiple different cages. One particular pen is in the middle of a feeding frenzy, devouring several live humans.

>wat do?

>>25607259
Hey now, who are we to interfere in that business? If someone put them in there, we'd just be offending them, and if someone wanted them saved, they'll never know we saw. Neutrality! Does this fortress come with an actual inside where a supervillain type might decide to park his butt? If so, let's search there for someone who is both intelligent and not food.

>>25607477

The central building of the fortress is a low, two-story stone stronghold, but your Shade is only halfway across the courtyard towards it when shadows slip out of the darkness and attack. An immediate blow to the head disorients her, and she fails to recover over the next five seconds while the shadow minions grapple with her.

Fortunately, they just end up dragging you where you were planning to go anyway.

Inside, a throne has been erected atop a pile of human bones. Atop the throne is a creature of solid shadow whose form you cannot make out in the murky darkness. "If you can speak, do so," he says, "if not, your master had best make themselves known within the hour, else they'll be losing their Shade."

>wat do?

>>25607873
Hmm. I can't say I love the idea of walking in there when even in shadow form we can't be safe. We can't actually lose our shade permanently, can we? It'll return after some time, right?

Regardless though, we should probably make contact. The fact he went for 'capture' instead of 'kill' makes him alot more friendly than every other daemon we've encountered on this peninsula. I say go visit him.

>>25608138
Seconding this. Be friendly and introduce ourselves properly. Anomaly is probably pretty decently recieved among Night in general I would imagine

>>25608138

You head to the fortress yourself. When you draw near, the fortress gates open for you, and close with an ominous boom behind you. You weave between the packs of ghouls, who stare at you, arms reaching for you from the bars of their cages as you pass, not that they could grab you even if they were free, and then you are shown into the shadowy throne room.

The shadowy figure on the throne says "ah, good, a sensible person willing to talk face-to-face. Or an assassin I get to kill. Fun for me either way." His shadowy form rises from the throne, towering, tall and skeletal thin above you, and slowly becomes solid once again. Mottled red skin with the odd deathly pale patch is stretched out across bones so tight you can see the joints, the skeletal face dominated by two large, yellow eyes and a grin made up of razor-sharp teeth far too wide to be concealed by the almost non-existent lips.

The thin, sickly form steps down the pile of bones with a casualness that borders on swagger, pulling a polearm made of pure steel with a crescent blade atop from the pile. "I do believe I recognize you," he says. A thunderous tap of his polearm against the ground and you find yourself suddenly vaulted into corporeality again. "Anomaly!" says the ever-grinning Thin Jack, "I came here to rescue you. You're welcome."

---

And now I must go. Quest start time has actually mostly stabilized at around 1400, so TDQ should return around then tomorrow.

>see you then

i can't remember atm but when in our shadow form what do we look like? just a black circle of silhouette of little girl or was our form whatever we want it to be?