And So The Sun Rises

[Mysticsage]

The single flickering of an open oil flame finally snuffed out as the smell of burning fat finally woke you all again. It's been hard to keep track of time in this dark underground root cellar that had been transformed into a jail cell. The five of you have been either tightly chained or even suspended against the wall depending on your size and weight with thick black iron chains and balls. The gate a good ten feet from the closest of you was also made from heavy and imposing black steel thick which soot that took two of the guards to open.

Now sitting in the almost complete dark, the tiny slivers of torchlight from the one room house upstairs were apparent. The ten or so guards that had worked to capture you all had never come down or shown their faces over the passed Two ands half days bringing no water or food. They simply left you to rot down here alone with these other four strangers. The cause for everyone's sudden imprisonment might be more or less justified. For the day the guards captured you and threw you in here to sweat and roast in the dark you either committed or were perceived by witnesses to have committed a pretty serious crime.  This crime was something that either resulted in a death, serious theft, destruction of a nobleman's/ Guild property, cursing someone, or so on that might make you lose you're head or at least an arm. Before you had a chance to hide evidence or run regardless if you did the deed or not the guards and the ensuing crowds descended as if out of nowhere.

Instead of taking you to an official or normal holding cell they stuck you here underneath a shack and took advantage of the busy streets to force you to comply without using your powers. For some your capture may have been more forceful then others and those people would have released as soon as they got close your exalted powers seemed to leave you. They then overwhelmed you with their numbers. Even now your powers have yet to return within this cell or with your belongings they took. Even the bods seem to stop your natural strengths or dexterity no matter how you struggle for the past few days.

You've been forced to listen to the guards muffled yet still audible drunken antics and you are pretty sure on top of gambling and the like they had courtesans stop buy at least twice. The five of you have been left to chat amongst yourselves for the passed day and may continue to do so as you all come to an unusual almost unnerving stint of near complete silence compared to the usual level of noise.

GM Notes

GM Note

Tell us what happened that ended you up here I'm leaving the general details up to you including what you've told everyone after spending 56~ hrs chained up together and the usual intro how your dressed and what you've been doing ect. And just to say again you did not have to commit the crime just be blamed for it.

[close]

[Oath]

Sakuya had complied with the orders of the guards, she was confused as she had done nothing wrong, but cooperated anyhow. Always better to keep things orderly. Yet somehow, despite acting civil she was chained down in the dungeons with four other people. At least she recognized one of them. Though he was a friendly enough guy and she couldn't see him committing some great crime. Surprisingly the guards had let her keep what she was wearing, unusual for a prison. Her red cloak draped from her shoulders, buckled around her collarbone, and a simple white button-up shirt was worn underneath along with a pair of shorts.

She was starving, and thirsty and decided it was better to relax. She tried to get as comfortable as she was able to in her position and avoided struggling, it would have been a waste of energy. All Sakuya could really do was wait for her captors to come for her and figure out what they wanted her for. Since she was clearly innocent, there was no reason to detain her in such a fashion, but that didn't seem to stop them, so there must be a reason. The dim lights flickered and reflected off of her pale golden eyes as she watched the door intently, waiting for any sign of someone coming. 

[Mysticsage]

Spoiler

Since Oath said I get to choose for him what his crime was I'm filling in that blank :D

[close]

Sakuya was investigating claims of murders that occured thanks to a monster attack in the waterways of nexus when in the proceess of searching her investagation agency was ransacked by Guild agents for being a spy looking to undermine and destroy their efforts with false stories of creatures and spirits. When she and her team arrived they showed proof of them fabricating things and sending letters to merchants as far away as Gem for hidden Guild information. They even dug up drugs and several strings of jade talons that she had never seen before in her life. In an attempt to keep the office and her team from this false accusation she offered herself up as a bargaining chip because without her the group could do little. The police confiscated all her files along with the planted evidence and dragged her away in bonds. The worried screaming faces of her employees etched into her mind.

[pringerbeam]

     Muyin scratched at his bare chest with one hand as he looked down to his other wrist and the manacles upon them.  He thought back to the recent events which found him here shirtless with tattered pants and a grumbling stomach.  He had heard from his friend Sakuya that there was a monster to fight so he traveled to her office to help.  She was not there when he arrived so he waited for her until suddenly Guild agents burst into the agency.  Confused by all the shouting and posturing of the agents, Muyin made a feeble attempt at hiding but was rounded up with the rest of the employees and cowed into submission.  That is, until one of the agents struck one of the employees.  Seeing this Muyin moved to defend the employee by shoving the agent away and through a window.  Thus began a brawl as Guild agents poured into the agency seeking to overwhelm Muyin by sheer force of numbers.  Their strategy eventually worked and Muyin was overwhelmed.  While his body withstood the attack with hardly a scratch, his clothes were not as durable and destroyed in the bodily struggle.
     A nibbling on his ear brought him back to the present as he looked to the large rat upon his shoulder.  He smiled at the rat.  "Aw c'mon, I'm just as hungry as you are down here." He breathed deeply, soothed by the presence of the rat and the rest of the nest which had made his hulking body their home currently sleeping in his lap.  He let his essence flow throughout his body and picked up the large rat in one hand and pet it with the other.  "If you're so hungry just go get some food.  At least you can leave."  He leaned back and pushed and pulled one of the weights bound to his left arm back behind him for use as a headrest, setting the rat down in the middle of his chest where it promptly curled up to sleep.  "So does anyone know when the Chief of Nexus will show up to judge us?"

Muying expends 3 motes of peripheral essence to activate 'Friendship with Animals Approach' charm

[Mysticsage]

As Muyin attempted to calm the rat he felt his essence well forth then fall way to nothing like grain of sands slipping through an hourglass to nothingness. To underscore the point instead of sitting comfortably in the palm of his hand the rat bit down hard and angrily drawing a line of blood from your palm. As the rat scurried down betraying any semblance of trust as it into a dark corner as blood gleamed off its teeth.

Staring at the welt of blood as it began to well up looking at the dark crimson brought hazy flashes of gore across concrete along with a splitting headache. The actual event when you were attacked by those guards is extremely hazy and unclear but bits and pieces of images that don't feel totally real fill his head of screaming faces and mangled limbs. When everyone was busy trying to subdue you as you had angrily stepped in it was hard to make out things so it is hard to tell weather those flashes were real or jjust your imagination.

[pringerbeam]

     Muyin frowned at the rat bite and shrugged.  Thinking to himself: guess he's hungrier than I thought.  He wiped the blood onto what remains of the leg of his pants and let out an audible sigh as he stared at the  damp ceiling.

[Bootman]

(This first post is going to be annoying but I'm trying to stay in character. Fair warning and tons of dice ahead)

By far the most talkative person in the group had been Sho Setsua. He oddly didn't seem too put out by the whole thing. Every once in awhile, he would come up with an escape plan and try it, but so far nothing had gotten the group out of their cells. He would also entertain the group with story telling and singing before thirst really started to get to him.

He was accused of casting charms on people, though really he was just applying his persuasion to get what he wanted. When the guards had come to take Setsua, he went with them without resistance, even striking up a friendly conversation on the way back. This was partially to try to make a friend who wouldn't be cruel to him in prison, but also to try to figure out exactly what was going on.

Spoiler

(Since Read Intentions is repeatable until you fail, here's what I'm doing in order until I either fail or you rule it takes up too much time. Don't forget to roll me extra dice for Appearance

Rolled 14d10 : 2, 3, 7, 10, 2, 10, 3, 9, 9, 2, 1, 6, 2, 10, total 76

for who ordered him to arrest me

Rolled 14d10 : 10, 1, 5, 10, 7, 1, 7, 1, 8, 3, 4, 5, 9, 1, total 72

what evidence they have against me

Rolled 14d10 : 7, 9, 9, 7, 6, 7, 5, 7, 9, 5, 7, 7, 9, 1, total 95

who is commanding officer is and how he feels about him

Rolled 14d10 : 1, 9, 2, 8, 3, 5, 6, 9, 8, 1, 5, 1, 3, 7, total 68

any details about the people who claim I cast charms

[close]

Either way, once he got to prison, Sho wasted no time in familiarizing himself with his cellmates. There was always room to make more friends, and befriending people you might be spending years with was never a waste of time. He kept them amused and entertained with conversation, as best he could, all while getting an idea of what kind of people they were.

Spoiler

Sakuya

Rolled 13d10 : 2, 3, 7, 1, 6, 4, 6, 8, 9, 7, 9, 3, 10, total 75

Intimacies related to why they started a detective agency

Rolled 13d10 : 9, 9, 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 7, 9, 6, 1, 5, 9, total 85

Intimacies related to Muyin

Rolled 13d10 : 1, 6, 4, 9, 10, 4, 5, 5, 7, 6, 5, 10, 6, total 78

Intimacies related to why she turned herself in

Rolled 13d10 : 9, 1, 2, 8, 2, 8, 6, 8, 6, 6, 1, 6, 7, total 70

Intimacies related to why she's in Nexus

[close]

Spoiler

Muyin

Rolled 13d10 : 2, 6, 9, 9, 4, 6, 8, 9, 8, 2, 8, 7, 4, total 82

Intimacies related to why he was so nice to that murderous rat

Rolled 13d10 : 6, 8, 8, 7, 2, 10, 6, 9, 7, 6, 1, 5, 9, total 84

Intimacies related to why he's in Nexus

Rolled 13d10 : 4, 4, 4, 2, 8, 8, 10, 4, 5, 5, 5, 8, 10, total 77

Intimacies related to Sakuya

[close]

Spoiler

Yuehao

Rolled 14d10 : 8, 2, 2, 4, 6, 4, 10, 4, 5, 8, 3, 3, 8, 3, total 70

Intimacies related to Why she crafts

Rolled 14d10 : 4, 10, 10, 1, 4, 3, 8, 8, 4, 8, 7, 10, 9, 8, total 94

Intimacies related to Why she studies so much

Rolled 14d10 : 2, 5, 1, 10, 5, 8, 4, 8, 10, 8, 1, 8, 3, 8, total 81

Intimacies related to how she conducts business

[close]

Spoiler

Haizi

Rolled 13d10 : 5, 2, 8, 10, 8, 5, 5, 1, 8, 6, 4, 9, 6, total 77

Intimacies related to why she left the forest

Rolled 13d10 : 6, 10, 5, 6, 6, 8, 5, 9, 9, 9, 7, 3, 1, total 84

Intimacies related to how she feels about city life

[close]

"So, I've had a few ideas. Do any of you have ideas for how to escape before we starve?"
(well this was enough dice rolling for me. I'll roll for instill next post XD)

[Mysticsage]

The crowds were thick and had appeared as if out of thin air when the city guard came to collect you as you were busy handing out charms. The guards feed by the venom created by those people watching put shackles on your arms and accused you of cursing others with your words and how people had met with bad luck and death as a result. The crowd cheered as you were led off in the wagon and you had no time to ask further questions as fruits and rotten vegetables was thrown in your direction. There are no attempts from the guards to protect you or any real seeming chain of command outside of clearing a path to the wagon and then shoving you inside. The crowd lets them pass however they continue to throw virulent jeers and insults about loved ones you have affected. The guards work together smoothly without saying much to each other and nothing to you the entire time till they put you in the cell and leave.

You strike up a conversation to varying affects with the other people that were there and are added to the small group that has been assembled.

GM Note
I'm gonna let everyone else say what they are willing to share or let you discover over this time of a few days. There were some success so keep that in mind when discribing what he knows in more detail. But that is no means a force to have to tell everything and you can keep it cryptic because he's spent so little time with everyone as you like. If you want a guidline what to share just use his questions as guidelines.

GM Note
Do not take this read intentions roll as completely functional, but boot and I have worked out a compromise since this is a new system and we're finding a good rhythm. I read rules largely as written, but try my best to follow the spirit of what was intended by a rule first and foremost. So to keep the flow going If a roll is done inappropriately or goes to far from those rules and intentions and cannot be salvaged I'm just going to say it fails and we can talk about it privately. If you role play it well and I see what your trying to do and it can be seen as close I'll give you what I can but it won't probably be what you wanted. Afterwards if you want to talk to me about a result or anything I'm happy to explain and discuss it as long as it doesn't get explosive.  Then we can move on from there, otherwise when I say something fails or give an answer it sticks.

[Meta]

Yuehao had been silent all along.  She didn't struggle much...or at all, as far anyone had seen.  There were probably times when it'd have been easy to assume she had died, but then she would make some minor movement.  Sometimes, she would smile, when she wasn't looking at anyone in particular.  It almost seemed as though she was reminded of something that made her happy.  Very happy.

She had actually made no attempt to resist her captors, and had let herself be chained without struggle.  Her dress was elegant, although a bit worse for the wear due to the time spent down there in the prison.  Her hair pins and adornments had fallen off over time, leaving her straight hair a bit of a mess, but the woman did not seem very fazed by it.  At times, she would look at the others in the cell, but not speak.  Especially the very talkative one among them, she had examined him with her eyes for quite a while, though her expression remained neutral for the most part while doing so.

Aside from the occasional creak and rattling of her chains, the most sound she would make was an amused chuckle, followed by one of her distant smiles.

What the others did not know was the reason of her arrest, a fine orchestration planned for a considerable while.  She had gone to great lengths to burn down a small village somewhere, going far enough so as to incinerate historic records of it as well, of the few that there ever had been of it.  No one had heard of the village where she was born.  And no one ever will.

[Burdenking]

Haizi sat in the corner of the room, having been largely unable to move from that spot due to her legs, tail, and hands locked in restraints. For the first day, she had violently tried to escape from the shackles, doing all she could to even get the slightest of leeway to pull her limbs from them. But without breaking her limbs, she was stuck as a prisoner. The wyld girl had spent the second day trying to entertain herself with her environment, but the shackles had once more proven to be far to limiting to allow such a thing.

The third day, she spent mostly reflecting on how she had come to be there, and also examined the others that shared her cell, having realized that not speaking to them for so long was rather odd of her. She hadn't been in town long, or any seat of civilization prior to that, and had been walking in the open as she tried to hunt down the origins of the crest. However, the people talked oddly to her, and refused to deal with her in addition to that. What she had expected to be a quick and simple hunt, since the killers of her guardian had so foolishly left something that could easily be connected to them, she instead got nothing. She had merely been searching for around a few hours, but then she was found and ambushed by strange men and thrown into the cell she found herself in.

She didn't understand why she had been captured, and also why she was not in fact dead if others had come to hunt her. Thus far, everything about civilized life confused her to no end. However, it seemed the other people in her cell we calmer, so she endeavored to ask until one of them spoke. "Well Man-kin, I don't think they'll wait that long to eat us. it would take almost a whole moon before we would starve. Though, I'd like to hear your plans for escape. I'd rather not be here when their young come to feast on us." She said, looking at Sho with a face that clearly stated how little she was joking.

"Were I able to move freely, I might have been able to escape already, then again I don't have my weapons.....hmmm, these hunters are strange ones indeed."

[Oath]

There hadn't been much conversation in the cell. Sakuya herself had neglected to talk much about herself or the situation that had led to her detainment. Muyin seemed to have been caught up in the same incident, something that was a regret. There was no reason for him to of been captured as well, he was as innocent as she. The talk of escape, however, was perplexing.

"I have no such plans. I've done nothing wrong; if I escape, whoever is behind this will have further reason to pursue me. If anything were to happen to me, my colleagues at the Ephemeral Flower would be getting to the bottom of it, if they haven't started already. I do however, hope that whoever has clearly orchestrated our capture would be kind enough to make themselves known and what they would like of us. To answer your question Muyin, I honestly don't know, but if it isn't soon we might be dead."

Perhaps the most entertaining part of the entire situation from her perspective was the power of the restraints. She had not had her powers for long, but to think that there was something that could completely negate her powers. It was fascinating, and Sakuya desired to learn more about them. They may have some future applications as well.

Sakuya takes some time to examine as many of the shackles as possible since they seem to be tailored for specific people.

Investigation + perception +1 for search specialization on investigation for a case scene action, involving any details that can be discovered about the restraints.

Rolled 9d10 : 10, 4, 10, 7, 10, 10, 4, 1, 4, total 60

[Mysticsage]

Sayuka had been spending the better part of her time the last few days under the oil lighting examining the chains. Looking over every visible detail and yet you saw nothing that stood out of the ordinary about these chains. You looked at them for so long that it was beginning to make your eyes hurt. Then an idea hit you despite the nature of the environment you were in and the way they were being used they seemed to have no wear or marks on them. No beginning signs of the usual rust or water damage or the greying of age. They were always perfectly ordinary and pristine. That alone was strange enough when you think about it but nothing about them really marked them extraordinary. After all, you had no method of judging the time that it had taken to build this cell in the first place to determine age. They seemed perfectly normal until the lights burned out just recently.

Glancing down in the almost complete darkness you could barely make out a hair's width of a difference in the iron. Literal hair thin lines danced its way across the chains thinner then a spider's thread. You could just see straining your eyes in the dark a pattern forming from those lines intricate and graceful making all kinds of symbols and shapes all the way along the metal before blooming out where the metal is connected to the wall like a flower. They almost glow silver in the almost complete dark but no one seems to notice. Then you are forced to blink and they are gone again and you cannot seem to make them reappear as if it was your imagination.

[pringerbeam]

     A look of surprised horror washed across Muyin's face at the mention of escaping and he scurried the minuscule distance to the side of the cell where Sakuya sat.  He hunched down  even further to try and whisper into Sakuya's ear after she spoke raising a clawed hand over his mouth to hide his mouth.  This did little to dampen the sounds and in a whisper perfectly audible to all in the cell, more akin to a loud hiss Muyin spoke. "Hey Sakuya, I don't think we can trust these guys.  Why would they want to escape if they were innocent?" Thoughts of his greatest fears began to flash through his mind.  Warnings of the dangerous folk that he might encounter in the big city told to him in warning from his friends and family back in the village.  Here he sat in jail with criminals, nay scoundrels, planning to escape justice rather than plead their case to the chief of the city.  He continued to 'whisper' "Do you think we should tell the guards?"

[Bootman]

Sho looked wryly at Haizi, enjoying the presence of so many people who didn't seem too put out that they had been thrown into prison.

"Perhaps they intend to release us into a controlled environment to hunt us in. Either that or we will be held in this room indefinitely." The man mused.

Then he turned to Muyin and Sakuya.

"That's one way to look at it. Another is that we haven't been fed for days and are dangerously approaching starvation. I hope that absolves me innocence in your eyes, Muyin. What about you, Miss?"[/navy] He said, directing the question at Yuehao.

"Do you have any escape plans?"

[Meta]

The most talkative of them spoke again, this time to her.  Yuehao's eyes fell upon him.  Her grin broadened, and she let out a soft laugh, before her expression fell back to a mere amused smile on the corner of her lips.  "We all share the same cell, but we are bound, left to wither.  Whoever has us wants us at our weakest, although not broken."

She looked around at the others present.  "After all...from all that I heard, from what I've seen of you, we do not seem to be accused of similar crimes.  Yet we  are all together..."  The woman's voice was composed, despite her amusement and otherwise overly quiet behavior prior to this moment.  "We will not be left to die, we are all here with purpose.  They probably expect an escape.  Or panic, it will not matter in the end.  And I accept that inevitability." The woman let her own words sink in, before adding another comment.  "I would have expected execution for my deeds, so this change has my curiosity..."