COTERIE INTERACTIONS (IC) - CHAPTER I

[treasuremap]

COTERIE INTERACTIONS

NAVIGATION

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RULES/FAQ

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COTERIES

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LOCATIONS

The leader of each coterie, all colloquially known by the same name as their group—Jaguar, Eagle, Viper, and Salamander—will play a major role in the story, oftentimes appearing in events and even, during major plots, accompanying the player characters on their quests. While having constant access to them in threads would be difficult to keep track of and may lead to unfair advantages for some characters, and they will never directly comment to any network or log posts made in incensed or incenselogs, we do want to offer the opportunity for characters to interact with them. Therefore, with the exception of the aforementioned event posts where the NPCs might appear, all direct interactions with the coterie leaders can be done here. Simply comment below with the leader you'd like to interact with and whether it is in person or via medallion/journal in the subject line.

Note that it is fine to handwave minor interactions with the NPCs, such as in the case of exposition or receiving their quest orders, and you do not need to thread that out here nor ask permission from the mods. Relationships beyond passing familiarity as leader/subordinate cannot be handwaved however—in general, characters will not "build CR" with their leader to the degree they might with other characters in the game. They will still get to know them well over the course of the story, though.

Please also note that the NPCs are played by the mod team and are subject to the same tagging speed or question-answering expectations. We will respond as soon as we can!

Comments

Eagle - after healing the refugees in Coba 'cause he promised that + stories

[eidxiety]

[A promise is a promise, not that Ain has ever really struggled with healing people to begin with — it's sort of just something he does. The concept of maybe taking a break to eat or rest doesn't occur to him since he physically does not need either of those things — just needs to keep his mana above a certain level before he runs out of El energy and dissipates like dust on the wind — but beyond that, he's perfectly alright to spend all day healing people.

Belatedly, he recalls Eagle saying that when he's done fixing up the refugees, that he'd be compensated for his time — and he'd also promised the man stories, so. To the medallion!]

Mr. Eagle? Haha, you're not free right now, are you? I just finished taking care of injuries in Coba as instructed, and at the last minute I remembered that I owe you tales of adventure.

[He pauses then, like, is Eagle currently in Coba actually? and realises he has no idea what the guy even looks like so it's not like he can go scout him out if so. Oh well, if he's in another city, Ain will just make the journey there, it's no skin off his nose.]

[treasuremap]

Oh, yes! I am free, in fact, or as free as I can be with all this terrible responsibility thrust upon me.

[ Oh the humanity, having to shelter and take care of others. ]

I remember you, yes. I'm up at the top of the Eagles' tower if you'd like to meet me. Just say I sent for you if anyone asks, though I doubt they'll bother.

[eidxiety]

[Terrible responsibility... Ain almost wonders if Eagle is doing anything up in that tower as he makes his way there.]

Haha, you must be horribly busy, Mr. Eagle.

[Sips his figurative tea.

Luckily, finding a glaringly obvious tower isn't too hard, and so Ain's quick to make his way there and finds that, as stated, he's not questioned by anyone lingering in the area. It makes wandering until he finds Eagle easier, at least.

Ain waves when he's pretty sure he's located The Man, The Myth, The Bard himself. Despite spending all that time casting magic, he doesn't look remotely tired.]

Hello. You're Mr. Eagle, aren't you?

[treasuremap]

[ If you count "sitting at a messy table with his copy of the journal open in front of him (to a blank page for some reason), staring into space and on his third glass of wine" anywhere in the vein of "doing anything," then Eagle is doing a lot! But if you're normal and you don't then yeah, he's just sitting there like an asshole, day drinking. To his slight credit, he was technically Doing Something a little while ago, but now he's on a break and therefore will not be accepting criticism at this time.

He smiles brightly when Ain enters, politely rising from his seat and gesturing to an empty one at the table. ]

Ah, there he is, the Dragonslayer! Welcome! Yes, I am Eagle—please, have a seat. How nice to meet such a man of many talents in person at last. Would you care for something to drink? I have wine, or... oh, more wine.

[ He really does have Wine Or Wine, there's at least five bottles of it at that table, two of them already open. ]

[eidxiety]

[As instructed, Ain has a seat, crossing his legs and neatly folding his hands in his lap. One has to wonder how he's not absolutely baking in that fur coat of his, but that aside...]

Aha, I don't care much for liquor.

[On one hand, it's probably polite to take an offered drink. On the other, Ain super does not enjoy how liquor tastes or how it affects him either. He gets a little melancholy and vent-y, which is bad for a man who likes to keep his secrets close to his chest.]

Have you considered some water? It looks like you're well into your cups.

[He'll launch into all of the stories he owes in a moment. First comes the light judgement upon day drinking.]

[treasuremap]

[ Shrugging nonchalantly, Eagle takes his seat again and pours himself a fresh glass of white wine. He meets Ain's eye while he sips it, his expression jovial, but it's also pretty likely he's also being specifically contrary while he does it. ]

I considered it, then decided against it. Don't worry, I can hold my grapes, believe me. I've got a clear head just ready and waiting to hold all the fancies you could possibly fill it with!

[eidxiety]

Right, well... I hope you're ready to take notes, then.

[Said with a cheery note before Ain launches into his story, though he'll give Eagle plenty of moments to interject and ask questions if he would like to do so. Ain leans back in his seat and casts his gaze to the ceiling.]

Where I come from, the world is split into several realms. "Elrios" is where I hail from, but there's another just called simply "the demon realm". This story takes place in Varnimyr, one of the areas there. Varnimyr is...

[A hellscape, honestly.]

Dark. Covered in lots of alien plants with its four moons ominously hanging in the night skies, one of them looking like there's been a bite taken out of it. Me and my friends spent a long time there, fighting off dark elves and furious demons, until we came upon this tower in the middle of nowhere, guarded by four red dragon heads.

...they weren't too keen on letting us enter the tower, haha! Whenever we'd slay one and move on to the next, the first one would get back up after a moment, as if its life force was controlled by something we couldn't quite see. Those heads, as it turns out, were connected to the tower, which meant the four heads wouldn't go down quite so easily.

[Ain leans forward and, using a little bit of his magic, summons a tiny flame in his palm. This is literally as much fire magic as he knows.]

Reddish-pink flames like this were quick to envelop all of us. We were a group of roughly thirteen people, and one of those heads was big enough to swallow two of us whole in one bite! We're quite lucky that none of them did, though I do recall one of the heads quite literally using itself as a flail and sending one of my comrades flying.

[Ain puts out the magical fire so that he doesn't burn something.]

[treasuremap]

[ While Ain talks, Eagle starts off listening raptly and drinking his wine, but it isn't long until he's abandoned his glass to put his elbows on the table and his chin in both hands, giving his undivided attention. It's one of the rare moments his eyes have lit up in recent memory for more than a second or two, and that delight only grows when Ain adds visuals to the already riveting tale.

It's a good thing he puts the fire back out, though, or he might've reached out to touch it like a lunatic. ]

Four heads, you say... and quite enormous! However did you manage to defeat it~?

[eidxiety]

[Fire burns, Mr. Eagle, please do not the fire.]

It was quite the battle! We had to split our group and go after the heads like that. Those of us capable of flight or that could move particularly fast — fast enough to dodge the flailing of the heads or their flames — made their way to the top of the tower from outside via crumbling pathways and buttresses. The rest stayed on the lower levels to deal with two of the heads there.

[Eagle is probably perceptive enough to see through Ain's little "us" there, meaning he's one of the ones that can fly. Other than that, he doesn't explain anyone else's flight abilities. One of his friends is literally a robot, she has thrusters. Ain does not, at all, consider this odd or out of place. Everyone has that one friend that can fly, obviously.]

It was quite tough! We had to coordinate killing the four heads at the same time, but at a certain height, communication is impossible with the group on the ground. There's nothing that we did special to communicate when to land a killing blow, but rather, those of us up top carefully watched those on the ground. It was trickier than it sounds.

My job is mostly to heal others and act as support, but one of the heads came bearing down on me. Luckily I had thought to shield myself with magic only moments prior, and a well-timed hit with my sword managed to take out its eye after it couldn't knock me aside. Next to me stood a companion with a penchant for... ah, quite literally imbuing his fists with lightning and punching, who managed to land a killing blow on it after it tried to harm me. A little ways up the pathway, from the corner of my eye, cannonfire from a man known as "The White Wolf of Hamel" rained down on the second head. The explosions were blinding, as I'm sure you can imagine.

[Ain beams.]

When I glanced downwards, I saw a hail of arrows mixing with a flurry of blows from a greatsword, and the third head collided limply into the side of the tower. The fourth, which was slightly obscured from my vision, went down not long after that.

...

And that was when the entire tower started to shake and crumble!