What Do You Want? [Winter Festival; Closed]

[Kassan]

Kassan flinched as the thing threw itself at him. It grasped for his face, but in its haste the creature had forgotten his glaive, which sliced into the thing's side. It moved back against the wall, but Kassan's close encounter had left him temporarily addled. Thoughts of the past bubbled up. Earlier, this thing had bore the mask of his saviour. Suddenly and inexplicably he felt compelled to move towards it and attack it, because somewhere deep inside he believed it would give him the answers he sought. He could not have predicted its next move however. It lunged for the girl, grabbing her as she flopped lifelessly in its flabby appendages. Her face distorted as she crumpled. Then the thing seemed to shift, growing in size. Kassan had to think fast. Trying to shake himself from the mixed feelings of euphoria and fear, his hand went to a dagger and he threw it forward, aiming for the things face -- or what looked like a face of sorts -- hoping to distract it from the girl.

[Liar]

And the knife was in its head, and the life was gone from the body that had already died. Its fingers slipped from Boris’s face. It left white marks where they had gripped soft flesh. She was left tired, staggering, but alive. The only noise the creature made was the wet slap of its deflating corpse against the cobblestone beneath. An acrid steam rose from the gashes on its side and head, gasping like a hot red ghost. The embedded blade fell where it had no wound to fill. The rare beast was dead, its brothers destroyed by the mob or escaped back to their home in the Aperture. The hallucinations had ceased, leaving the very air saturated with anxious confusion. But in Kassan’s little corner of the city, there was only silence. Strangely enough, the limp shell of its body did not leak any of the contents that seemed to have disintegrated inside of it. It was drying fast, and promised to be dust within the hour. Kassan could not know that this was the last remaining specimen within any human’s grasp, but whether or not he did anything with the corpse, he had been left with a more personal gift. Like some sort of final revenge, it had stained the thing that killed it with its sour excuse for blood, leaving the greater part of the monk’s knife cursed by an eternal blackness.

[Kassan]

Boris stumbled as the monster relinquished its hold. Kassan caught her before she fell. The creature seemed to move as if in a trance, shrinking all the time, like it was a bag of air. Noise turned to silence, only marred by the ragged breaths of the monk and the girl. Residual steam came from the being, before it finally fell in a crumpled heap. Defeated. Destroyed. Kassan watched over it uneasily. All the moisture in the body was scattered to the wind with the steam, so much so that the body began to disintegrate. There would be nothing left soon enough. Crouching, he stooped to investigate the fading corpse. But it was this motion that revealed his dagger to him. Soiled by death, ombre and cloaked in a residual darkness. He ran his fingers along the metal, but it was not blood. It was something abyssal. Something, that he felt, would never leave the blade.

[Liar]

EXPERIENCE AWARD Kassan Skill Points Running 2 Observation 1 Dagger 1 Lore When the Past Came Alive The Instinct to Protect Iniomen Item The Bloodied Dagger: one of Kassan’s throwing knives has been stained black when he killed an inioman. As such, the blade as adopted a diluted version of the inioman’s power. It inflicts debilitating but pleasant hallucinations of the victim’s greatest desire, draining him of energy and pulling him from reality for up to six minutes. Ezra Crenshaw Skill Points Negotiation 1 Observation 1 Intimidation 1 Lore A Real Gem From A Fake One Comforting a Child Jett Skill Points Hammer 2 Intimidation 1 Running 1 Lore Arguments Are Best Resolved With Violence Comforting a Child Iniomen Shade Skill Points Observation 1 Investigation 1 Lore Patience Makes Perfect Boris Skill Points Running 2 Gambling 1 Observation 1 Lore Instigating a Fight Iniomen Jag Skill Points Investigation 1 Running 1 Lore Fear No Monk Comforting a Child Iniomen Damian Skill Points Observation 2 Investigation 1 Lore The Value of Things