CALCUTTA • JULY 2025 EVENT

[uruz]

EVENT: CALCUTTA

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I am caught, tangled in

( content warnings: body horror, surreal horror, post-apocalyptic themes )

You wake with soil under your nails, something sharp in your mouth, and the scent of damp rust in the back of your throat. The sky is not night, but it is no longer day. Around you, a city's skeleton lies tangled in ruin and overgrowth in the crisp, tail end nips of autumn— skyscrapers strangled by vine and mycelium tower around you, streets are cracked open like wounds. No sound of civilization. Only wind, soft and low like breath.

You are not where you should be, and you are not entirely who you were. Do you remember the dream you had? Perhaps barely, perhaps almost too vividly. You will likely find a mask nearby— one you find familiar. While you may not have the same urgency to wear it as you did within the dreamscape, you at the very least feel the need to carry it with you now.

Some wake in subway tunnels pulsing with bioluminescence, others in penthouse ruins swallowed by moss and red ivy. Rooftop gardens filled with brittle blossoms. Empty galleries hung with paintings that seem to shift when you’re not looking. Vessels are absolutely scattered. You can wake up anywhere that's possible within the bones of this city. Life endures here, but it is changed. In the streets, rats with slick, glowing underskin scurry between collapsed signs. Pigeons wheel overhead, blind-eyed and silent. Dogs and cats roam in feral bands, some marked by fungal growths, others with bodies too long, too many limbs, or split maws bursting with tendrils. Deer can also be found roaming the enclosure of what used to be Central Park, and will open their strange mouths when they seem to stare at you. Seem, because they no longer have eyes to do that with. From deeper shadows and thicker canopies come the zoo escapees: a moose that climb walls and have a petrifying gaze, herds of zebra stand frozen like littered statues until they hear noises, to which they will scatter like roaches. Sewer grates rattle beneath your feet, and something wet and ancient stirs in the depths— Hippos that release toxic gases when threatened lay in the waters and gnaw on anything they could get their teeth on. The most gentle of them all are the giraffes; they still attempt to nibble on the falling sunset leaves where still gathered, and will even come up to humans who offer anything green for them to eat. There's so much more left unsaid, if you're unlucky enough to come across them.

The flora is no safer. Familiar trees such as maple, ginkgo and oak still grow in parks and fracture ciment with their powerful roots. Plenty of the bark is etched with a strange set of sigils that hum when approached. Ivy pulses with low light and throbs when touched. Entire buildings are choked with fungus: spires of mushroom growths that sway despite the absence of wind, spores spilling like ash when disturbed. Moss spreads across broken windows in fractal shapes, responding to movement, to emotion with colors beyond what you could imagine. Wildflowers bloom in moonlight— roses with petal-thorns and daffodils exhale perfume that clouds your thoughts.

And still, the city seems to watch you soundlessly. Beneath your feet, the soil responds. Something old sleeps in the brickwork, the concrete, the iron bones of this place— and your presence has stirred it.

You'd better get moving. Survive.

NOTES:

• You must find shelter, water, and food. Anything that can be found in city stores is plausible, but much of the food will be expired or ransacked by the lives before yours, or animals. The Host-fauna are edible if you can stomach it, and some may talk in tongues before they die. The flora is a mixed bag, from harmless to not.
• The environment is reactive: Touch a wall and it pulses. Step into an abandoned deli and the shelves might whisper for a second.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS

• Tokens will feel a strange resonance when near remnants of human structure, especially things tied to strong emotion (graffiti, photos, childhood toys, street art, music).
• Tokens will feel warm when close to sites where others have suffered or are remembered deeply. These sensations are disorienting but emotionally vivid, almost like deja vu.
• Tokens could experience nosebleeds or migraines near intense emotional hotspots. This is their magic wanting an outlet, but too newly formed to pour itself out.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS

• Offerings will feel the thrum of the Murmur, like a second heartbeat in the earth, when near fungal flora or decayed nature.
• Offerings will feel oddly familiar with the world around them, as if it recognizes them and vice verse. Scents linger longer and skin responds to temperature or emotion in exaggerated ways.
• The act of hunting and consuming host fauna is euphoric, but only for a moment— followed by a haunting awareness of their own anatomy shifting from the inside in ways they should fear.

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And I wake, say your name

( content warnings: sensory distortion )

One night— it doesn't matter which, time has loosened— your mask beckons. Something is encouraging you to put it on. It sears cold when you do. A pressure behind your eyes grows sharp, then splits. Suddenly, the silence inside your skull isn't yours anymore.

The Murmur is stirring.

A psychic thread pulls taut through your mind like a bow ready to shoot. Language might fail. Images are the easiest to come first— flickers of hands, blood, feathers, fire. Then voices, soft and reverent, speaking your name in words you don't know but understand. Some speak back. Some yell. Some sing. You sense others, Tokens humming with potential, Offerings heavy with heat and pain.

You are not alone. You never were.



NOTES:

• Your gamewide "network" is live! Try to reach someone through the Murmur. Perhaps a thought, a memory, or just a name. Players are welcomed to create prompts within this log or post to the network community proper.
• Communication may come in fragments. Images repeat, words loop, emotion surges without cause or by accident. One name in particular echoes:

Espera.
You may try to reach for her, even if your chances are slim. You might end up contacting someone or something else entirely.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Tokens may begin having their first access to inner magic. Not enough to use consciously, but enough to glitch with use, accidental or not. A friendly reminder that characters should not be able to use their magic with ease, yet. Keep in mind they should all have a realistic adjustment period.
• Tokens may have sensory overlaps: seeing sounds, hearing memories, tasting colors.
• Tokens may be energy sensitive. Areas with high ambient emotion (graveyards, burnt apartments, memorable objects) seem to strengthen their clarity but exaggerate their magic in startling bursts.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:

• Offerings may have their transformation accelerate when using the Murmur's network, albeit in a way that glitches in and out. A friendly reminder that characters should not be able to use their transformations with ease, yet. Keep in mind they should all have a realistic adjustment period.
• Offerings may hear less words, more songs, breathing, scent— nonverbal communication that may be overwhelming.
• Offerings may experience intense somatic reactions while using the network: twitching limbs, sudden pain, the sense of being stroked or watched.

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Wrapped and quartered

( content warnings: body horror )

As the days bleed together, the city begins to still. Where once the overgrowth pulsed with strange life, now it withers back into itself. The streets grow colder. The air bites. The mutated fauna, once noisy, prowling, goes silent. Ivy wilts, retreating from the moonlight. The mushroom towers collapse in on themselves with wet sighs. Even the buildings seem to hold their breath. Your own exhales frost in the air, hanging like ghosts. Above, the sky splits at the seams— crimson bleeding in from the edges, as if the moon itself were being peeled open at the arrival of winter.

And then: the masks begin to thrum.

It is subtle at first, a hum at the base of the spine. A low vibration felt rather than heard. But it grows, constant, inescapable— as if something is ticking down inside you. The masks react even when untouched, glowing faintly, twitching. You feel it in your chest. A second heartbeat. You're urged to put it on.

A voice, familiar and female, threads through the Murmur like static on a broken radio. Espera says:

"If you have not Tethered . . . do so. Before she bleeds in full."

Your body responds before your mind does. Magic stirs in your bloodstream— volatile and half-born. For some, flame dances along their fingertips, mirrors twitch in response to their gaze, or their pulse sings in electric rhythm. For others, bones shift beneath skin, teeth ache with growth, limbs feel wrong. Something is changing about you. Slowly. Irreversibly.

NOTES:

• Animal hosts may react reverently to tethered pairs. Lone vessels are ignored, followed, or violently met.
• Winter is here in full, but it doesn't seem natural— it is a forced shift. The city feels colder, quieter, and more hostile. Even the corrupted ecosystem seems to brace for something larger.
• Magic is awakening further. All vessels, Token and Offering alike, begin to experience supernatural phenomena more intensely. These changes are often involuntary, especially under emotional or physical duress. Powers may flicker, trigger, or distort, reflecting the vessel's inner state. They should not have control of it yet.
• The call to Tether is no longer subtle— it is urgent. Even characters who resist connection may optionally feel the biological/spiritual pressure to Tether. Those who remain untethered may begin to feel destabilized, sensitive to The Murmur, and/or experience the subtle beginnings of Succumbence.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS

• Tokens may have unintentional magic surges in times of distress OR the awakening of "comfort zones". Small, warped spaces where reality thins into dreamscape, resembling meaningful memories (a childhood room, a stage, a battlefield). These zones offer eerie familiarity, but not safety from the weather.
• They may feel watched by something divine, but dispassionate— like being studied under a microscope.
• They may feel a need for proximity so great that the body physically aches. In worst case scenarios, you may even fall ill the longer you ignore your body's cry to dissipate your building magic. Tethering will immediately resolve this.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:

• An Offering's new instincts and transformations may begin to surface. Fear of fire. Yearning for music. It will all depend on what you're becoming. One thing that may be shared is a fierce protectiveness toward nearby Tokens.
• They may sense that something is weighing their souls against an invisible scale— not to punish you, but to categorize you. You have the inexplicable feeling that it is also the same thing that is shaping you.
• They may feel compelled to nest or anchor themselves near a Token's comfort zone or with a Token— circling the space like a sentinel or beast returning home. Tethering will make you whole, calm and seen.

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Missing pieces find me

( content warnings: uncanny doppelgängers, possible visions of murder, violence, self harm. )

Winter has settled into everything with soft snowfall. Into your joints. Into the breath you share with others in the dark, or by an impromptu fire with scraps. Into the way your name sounds now when someone says it soft like a secret, or a warning. You've learned to ration warmth like a dwindling supply.

You've grown used to the rhythm of this place: the creak of half-dead buildings, the hollow crunch beneath your feet, the subtle hum that coils through the threads between you and the ones you've chosen to keep close throughout the month. The ones who understand that survival isn't just about staying alive.

But lately, something else has begun to settle in. It's not loud, and certainly not obvious. A shift, like a door left open too long. And that, Dear Vessels, starts in your reflections.

You see it in the fractured edge of glass, or in water that should have frozen weeks ago. In any surface slick enough to cast back your image, you may look, and it looks back. You move, and sometimes it moves too— but not quite right. A second too late. A second too early. Sometimes not at all.

And then it smiles, or frowns, or spits.

It is just enough to be wrong. Unnerving. Just enough to slip under your skin like splinters. You tilt your head— your reflection doesn't. You blink— it watches. And then you turn away. You tell yourself it's the frost. The tension. The light. But when you glance back, it’s still watching you.

Other vessels are seeing it, too, even if they don't say it out loud. They pause at windows. They look into still water a beat too long. They touch their own faces like they're checking for something missing. Or added. Something extra.

At least your reflection isn’t hurting you. Well. Not yet.

NOTES:

• A shimmering surface of any kind could reflect two vessels at once but their reflections are fighting. There's blood between them . . .
• At night, the moon above is bright, ice blue and full, with its edges tainted by a splowly spreading crimson. Characters may notice that in reflections, it is completely red and the tendrils from within spew out. A double take will have this reflection of the moon disappearing.
• Characters (especially those who may not be able to see the reflections) may notice and hear their comrade's reflections laughing or speaking to them— they may even respond and try to carry conversation. Note that it's the reflection that's doing this sporadically, and not the real person.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Tokens may notice their hands glowing in thier reflection, but not outside it. After a few moments, the same magic curls up their arms. Their mirrorselves are trying to access their magic for them, so best redirect anything if you want to avoid possible friendly fire.
• They may realize their reflection is always watching their Tether, even as they sleep. It tilts its head, comes crawling with a knife raised, drives it down— then it's gone.
• They may see their mirrorselves practicing violence on nearby objects, anything they could get their hands on.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS

• Offerings may wake to burning, superficial claw marks on their sides. Their reflections will be found licking their fingers.
• They may notice their reflection becoming violent with their nearby Tethers; pulling them by the hair, biting into them, prying at their eyes, etc.
• They may see their reflections pushing into existing wounds and feeding, wherever they are.

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Comments

[deathstealer]

[ A scholar, yes. A witch. Just a normal, harmless person; that's how Ranni is presenting herself. Oh, she knows nobody is buying the normal part, but it's to her advantage here to not be seen as a god. She does not know how the people here would react, but more importantly, she does not know how their mysterious dream-weaver would act. ]

The orchard and fields thy found thyself in was a dream, indeed,
but these lands feel real to mine senses, and raw besides.

[ There is a certain sense to a dream. One can be convinced in a dream that it is real, that everything one touches and sees is real, but after the dream is over, it becomes obvious that it was not real. So, Ranni cannot actually confidently say that this place is real, other than an educated guess.

She has been to the top of one of these tall buildings, though, and she has seen lands between. Far greater and wider geography than the dream had. ]

But what caused the downfall of this city?
For that, I cannot say.
In its' time it was beautiful and shining;
now reduced to a dank, growing thing.

[hongtian]

Not such an unusual story, as far as cities go.

[ Ruhong thinks of Elthriel, once known as the City of Light, now full of darkness and crime and but a few short miles from the Desolate Scar, a reminder of the battle waged there between the demon lords and their armies. Of the Hellish incursion it had faced not just once but twice. She thinks of Nightlund, now forever dark and swarming with armies of the undead.

Perhaps, she thinks, cities have no other fate but eventually to fall. Ruhong waves a dismissive hand. ]

As to your other observation, this feels about as real to my senses as the orchard did. Is that usual for a dream? Can you taste fruit as well as you feel pain in them? Revisit them, perhaps, to find someone and root them out?

[ She reaches for the fire, ignoring the flames that lick her skin and leave her unburned, for the thing that might have once been a pigeon that roasts in there now. ]

You've more knowledge than I, it seems, so perhaps food in exchange instead.

[deathstealer]

A generous offering indeed--

[ For the one who has little but offers it to a stranger nonetheless is worlds more generous than the one with plenty who offers much. ]

--but 'tis lost on one such as mineself.

[ Ranni taps a fingertip against her scarred cheek, where porcelain rings against porcelain, showing that her jaw and mouth cannot move. Even if they could, she has no organs with which to digest the roast bird. Ah, but sometimes she does miss food and wine. If only the sweet dream of the orchard had allowed her to partake.

The deliberate showing of her non-organic state is the most she has thus revealed to anybody in this strange world. Ruhong's generosity begets generosity, perhaps. ]

Dreams can be many things, and many more besides,
as vast and as complex as the stars above.
Some are fleeting and quickly forgotten,
and some seemeth as real as you and I.
The key, I find, is in the broader scopes;
the detail, and the weave and weft of its shape.
A simple orchard or run-down field is easily dreamed--
an entire city, not so.

[hongtian]

[ She sees it then, the way the firelight hits what should have been Ranni's skin. Ruhong pauses, lowers her proffered arm with the not-quite-pigeon, and beside them the fire suddenly flares and sparks as if in response to her curiosity. The light casts them both in sharp relief, and Ruhong gives a small hum as she looks at Ranni more closely until the fire fades to its normal temperament.

She's seen warforged before—fought beside one, befriended one—but she hadn't expected to see one here. If that's what Ranni even is, of course, but it's the most appropriate term that Ruhong can think to apply.

Not that it's enough to distract her or cause her linger on the revelation. ]

Is that not so?

[ Ruhong frowns and considers the notion that a city couldn't be dreamed in detail. ]

Perhaps if enough people dreamed? A shared one, stitched together. Or perhaps people dream only on the outer edges of the Plane...

[ Ruhong picks at the half-charred not-bird and tastes it on her fingertips. ]

I don't dream, myself. Neither have nor will... should. So I've no idea what to make of either place, neither the orchard nor the city.

[deathstealer]

[ Ranni inclines her head, thoughtful. Ruhong has an excellent point; perhaps Ranni is thinking too small. She is considering the dreaming capability of one small person. Perhaps she ought to be thinking of the capability of a greater god, or of many people at once.

She thinks to speak, but that godawful need surges in her breast once more, a hunger for something she can only describe as closeness. Like a rabid beast trying to shake its leash, it worries at the weak points of her ruthless repression. Is she the only one experiencing this? Is it a symptom of her long years in the far reaches of black space, so distant from humanity?

Or is it something instrinsic to this world? ]

Thy consideration has merit;
an idea to be pondered at length.
One wonders what might happen if one were to seeketh the city's edge,
would one find more beyond, or fall into a formless void?

[hongtian]

[ She hadn't thought of that. Ruhong pauses with her meal halfway to her open mouth and then closes it in thought. The city is so huge she had been frustrated by the thought of exploring every nook and cranny for the answers, but the edge of the city suddenly seems so simple. ]

... I need a steed.

[ As she says that, something swells, sudden and strong through the distant whispers that have been ever-present in her mind since she awoke. As Ranni feels it, so too does Ruhong—and so does he wake, uncoiling in her stomach, stretching his maw, unsheathing his claws, reaching, reaching to grasp, and suddenly Ruhong is on her feet and the fire flares to a bright, hot white beside them.

Ruhong sucks in air, her chest heaving and her face burning hot. There's a wild look in her red eyes as she turns to Ranni and takes a step closer. ]

And if the void beckoned to you, would you choose to fall?

[deathstealer]

[ A smile catches at the edge of Ranni's spectral face. ]

The void has already beckoned me,
and I flung myself into its depths
as it welcomed me like a cold lover.
Brought here, I was taken from its grasping arms.

[ Ruhong is so very biological right now, chest heaving for air, skin flushed, and Ranni would wonder what had provoked it had she not already guessed the moment Ruhong had flung herself upright. The need. The ache, deep inside. That voice through the Murmur, Espera, had mentioned Tethering. The word's meaning is obvious, but what does it entail? How does one go about it? Why must they do it?

Ranni, a cautious sort, is loathe to jump in with both feet. The Murmur is already psychic in nature, and she suspects Tethering is too. To give someone access to her mind like that... is not something she has ever considered.

And yet, she holds her hand out for Ruhong to grasp. ]

Does this unknown feeling call to thee also?
A restlessness of mind and matter,
a sleepless stirring in the soul?

[hongtian]

[ There's something... familiar about Ranni's response, an itch in the back of Ruhong's mind that she just can't quite reach. Another step—and Ruhong knows that she is once more on the brink of something, a doorway that had been shut in her mind suddenly unlocking. Welcomed me like a cold lover, Ranni had said, and there is a sardonic smile on Ruhong's lips because she knows exactly what Ranni means.

Well. This time, Ruhong decides, she'll be the one to reach out and take—not the other way around.

She looks down at Ranni's offered hand, bright blue in the firelight that has yet to dim and now pulses with Ruhong's every breath. Ruhong does not enjoy others' touch, for the most part. Her mind and body are hers, not for others, and she guards them fiercely. But the mask is heavy at her hip, the sky above bleeds red to taunt her, and Ruhong is overwhelmed with the sudden knowledge that taking this last step will be grabbing onto something to wrest control and make it hers instead. ]

I feel it, [ she says, ] and it will answer to me.

[ She takes Ranni's hand and reaches for the thread in her mind that she uses to link hers to another. ]

[deathstealer]

[ Ranni has tampered only briefly with the Murmur. Telepathy is not her forte; magic of the mind is known to her, but only in an academic sense. Thus, she has only been poking at the Murmur, gently feeling her way around, trying to get her bearings before she fully takes the plunge. Above all, she wants control.

For the briefest of moments, as they connect, she has no control at all.

A sense of herself streams over the connection. A dark moon hanging in a dark sky. Frost-laden trees, the crunch of footsteps in snow. A vast, dark void of nothingness. A world saturated in hated gold. A woman with utterly vacant eyes. A man with long red hair, his back turned as he walks away. The feel of old paper underhand, incense and stone surrounding.

And on top of it all, a sense of... relief. A sense that this is right, this connection is what Ranni must be doing.

Silent, she doesn't grip Ruhong's hand -- she can't move her fingers, lacking the magic that makes this doll body articulate -- but she brings up another two hands to press against the outside of Ruhong's hand, wedging them together. And she just takes a moment to figure out the stream of information she's recieving. ]

[hongtian]

[ In contrast to Ranni, telepathy is very much Ruhong's forte. Of all the uncomfortable discoveries to be had in this world, connecting minds and searching through another's thoughts is not among them as far as she is concerned. What is uncomfortable is how the connection seems to run through a wholly separate medium of this Murmur—but just as she had claimed to Ranni, this only increases Ruhong's determination to take this method and make it hers alone.

The moment of connection is jarring. Ruhong feels it immediately: images and memories that she's fairly certain are not hers, though in the moment Ruhong isn't quite clear what is Ruhong and what is Ranni. And then, amidst that smell of incense and smooth stone, something cold and smooth against her hands. Ranni's touch.

The stream, Ruhong remembers. The stream. Though the flow of her magic and breath has been walled off from the source since arriving here, her lower dantian, Ruhong remembers what it is to breath and to direct it. Her mind reaches for stone and pulls, the eddies of memory and self released and swirling freely now.

And then: the smell of incense persists, jasmine and sandalwood, wood planks beneath her knees where she kneels before a woman with bone-white hair and glowing golden eyes. Nothingness surrounding her, an endless void of blankness, through which Ruhong walks for hours until she comes face-to-face with herself, a black-eyed figure dripping darkness. A figure now engulfed in flame, and within it a thin, pale, half-elven man. His touch upon her skin. Then through the flame, a red dragon and its rider, shouting her name, a glowing lance hurtling towards her through the clouds, and Ruhong spreading shimmering ruby wings and opening a sharp-toothed reptilian jaw as she rises through the sky to meet it.

Ruhong is the one to grip Ranni's hand where Ranni cannot. And in her mind, she breathes: ] I feel your power.

[deathstealer]

[ At first, it is like being plunged into a deep, tumtuluous river. Ranni isn't sure which way is up or down, in which direction she is being carried, or even how to swim. The wash of information rolls over her like crashing waves-- she is a bulwark against the darkness, she faces a black-eyed vision of herself, she gazes up at a woman with glowing golden eyes. All sense of self is lost.

Incense and moons, dragons and half-wolves, gods and mortals, all of it is at once the same, the same life, the same experiences.

Finally, it relents, and Ranni is able to start untangling herself, reclaiming her own identity. She surfaces above the river, starts hauling herself to shore, but even as she finds dry land the sensations are difficult to pick apart. There is a sense in the back of her mind, an intimate awarness of the woman whose hand she holds. ]

And I, yours.

[ It feels like the easiest thing in the world to murmur over their connection, to speak not with her mouth but with her mind. It is deeply satisfying to know that Ranni has chosen to connect with a strong person; she suspects she would overwhelm a weaker constitution. Similarly, she's somewhat miffed about having to share so much -- she has been withholding information here to remain at an advantage, and now she does not know what Ruhong knows about her.

Her gaze goes up to Ruhong, studying her in a new light. The burning need in her breast has settled now. ]

That seemed to come with great ease for thee,
to have mastered the Murmur already is a fine thing.

[hongtian]

[ Perhaps they are more fitting for each other than either has realized, for Ruhong, too, has her secrets. Of course she would still take Ranni's if she could find them: Ruhong has rarely hesitated to dig through another's thoughts if she thought it would gain her an advantage, and she had felt something strong within Ranni's memories, hints of something that might have been overwhelming had she felt them in full. But she has not found how to sort through them yet, and Ruhong respects strength, especially in an ally.

She would look for Ranni's secrets while trying to hide her own, if she thought it would help. But then—sharing her secrets might help, too. At the very least, if Ranni were to find what Ruhong wishes to hide, Ruhong does not think she would be so angry about it.

She kneels down in the dirt before Ranni and smiles, a half-smile, a corner of her mouth pulled upwards. ]

Of the Murmur, I am not so certain. But I am no stranger to speaking and delving within the minds of others. It is... a family specialty.

You managed well, yourself. You know magic.

[deathstealer]

[ Ruhong kneels before her, and though it is not explictly to swear fealty, Ranni feels satisfied at the gesture nonetheless.

Her question about magic has Ranni exploring the capabilities of this new connection. Her head feels full in a way that is unusual but strangely satisfying, a constant murmur of Ruhong's thoughts and feelings churning alongside her own. Instead of explaining her magic, Ranni uses their connection to feed her the information in images and sensations.

Snow magic; chill and brittle, but as strong as shifting earth. The magic of the stars and the moon, dark energy coming so easily to her once she had discovered her own lunar object. Occult magic; the power of life and death, of pure energy essence. Glintstone magic, and its conjured bright weapons of blue. ]

As do thee, I sense.
Thy presence is bright,
like a flower turned toward the light.

[ Unthinkable, to be... sharing this intimately. Ranni is certain she should pull away, wary of being perceived too deeply and too thoroughly. If Ruhong is practiced in mind magic, she may have that capability.

And yet, the burning in her breast bids her to stay. To let this happen. And in her moment of weakness, Ranni listens to her dreadful emotions more than her logic. ]

[hongtian]

[ Ruhong ultimately holds fealty to nothing and no one but her Oath, but she is content to let Ranni take the gesture however she will. Her loyalty extends to whomever her allies are in service of that Oath; so as long as they are united in this dream and against the darkness, the end result may as well be the same.

This... sensation. It's similar to a Mind Link, and Ruhong has been doing that since her first day on the mortal planes. Yet it's different as well, for the flow between them is freer, and less in Ruhong's control than a single Mind Link would be. She can feel herself open to other rings on the chain, and it is only because this is the first that Ranni is the only one with her now.

She breathes and feels the sensation of night—but not darkness, not quite in the same way as she usually associates the word. There's something more neutral about this, more raw. Ruhong finds herself smiling grimly at that feeling of rawness: that means power. And that she can respect.

With respect, Ruhong finds herself responding in kind, though it would usually be against her better judgement: Do not share what is not necessary. But it would be rude not to do so now, to share the bright sparks of her magic, the psychic power of her mind, the ability to reach and to listen and command. ]

A flower. [ There is some amusement there, but not derisive. ] Let me show you what it is to be turned towards the light.

[ For that crimson in the sky, bleeding from the moon—that should be hers. She is the crimson sky, her ruby wings flung wide in front of the sun to cast red light down below. She raises her face to the white-hot heat above and roars, light and heat tearing through her as she makes it hers—

And then, again, a snap of the campfire, and Ruhong jolts out of the vision. ]

Well. [ She says this aloud. ] Perhaps we can make this world belong to something different than what claims it now.

[deathstealer]

A flower with mighty thorns, then;
with jaws and scales and a tendency to devour.

[ Excellent. That is the kind of flower Ranni prefers. Oh, she does like a primrose or a forget-me-not or a daisy, small and fragile and colourful. But if she had to tether with one, she would much prefer a great cactus or a pitcher plant, something capable of wounding its attacker.

Bereft of context, she cannot fully puzzle out the image she was just shown. Ruhong as a dragon, crimson-scaled and furious, a sky above that she saw fit to make her own. She has such depths and such secrets, and Ranni has more than a few of those herself. Neither of them are, it seems, the easily trusting sort.

That suits Ranni just fine. For now, she will take this tether as is: mysterious, but resonating with a warmth that serves as a buffer against the cold. ]

First, we must divine what claims this world,
before we extend our fangs and claws to claim it ourselves.