Ch5 02
And now for the introduction of my personal favourite couple, Morridan and Gurtie. They’ve been married longer than most folk have been alive and they argue more than Hasera and Lark. Truly, they are an inspiration.
We apologize for the LONG awaited update. Life threw a few curve balls and ate up our time. Not going to bore you with the details, so the summary is: Family got sick. Family got dog. Tornado hit nearby and knocked out power for a bit. Nothing out of the ordinary, I think?
Anyhow. We’re going to try our best to bring it back. Words of encouragement and the odd cookie are appreciated!
The Dog: 
Shelby is a Basset Hound. She is stubborn, lovable and absolutely attached to Jim. Even though she’s supposed to be Alli’s dog. Alli doesn’t find it funny. Jim finds it hilarious.
Awww!! Such cuteness! Such pawsifeetz!
Yay you’re back! And OMG PUPPY!!!!
You wrote “definitely” wrong. Also that’s a really nice looking dog.
Thanks for the catch – will fix tonight.
Tornados tend to throw a wrench into any plans. I live in area where they considered frequent so I know the havoc they can cause. Hope you feel better.
The dog ate your update. 😀
That is an acceptable assessment of the situation. Yes. Also, Timmy pushed our update into mud and our update had to go home and get changed.
Welp, hard to keep up the ruses after she reveals she can’t do any healing magic.
Also yet you are back! Hope everyone is better now and that is s cute puppy
Don’t Basset Hound howl a lot? 🙂
I was not informed of this prior to the acquisition of the dog.
The answer is yes. Shelby is a howler.
Our basset didn’t howl
This is why I usually go for something a bit more low-maintenance…like a pet rock. 😜
they argue more than Hasera and Lark
Sounds like my best relationships. We love the hell out of each other, but it sounds like death threats and the promise of terror. Love letters hidden in war declarations.
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But a shame on the sick household. Growing up my father used to joke that he would have to stay at a motel if one of us got sick because we’d all get sick and end up passing it back and forth like a bacterial hacky sack.
We have to pretty much quarantine ourselves from the families so it doesn’t become this game of “Who can mutate the cold more and send it back”.
To go on a little rant – the reason viruses are evolving so quickly is that we’re forcibly spreading them 4-5 times more than we used to due to exposing ourselves to other individuals while we are in the grip of a virus (That we think we can’t spread because we’re on some cocktail of Ibuprofen and acetaminophen).
We do it from the belief that the world cannot turn without us pushing paper at our jobs or the feeling of obligation to go to a family event or even the fear of the social fallout or potential social ramifications of not going to your friend’s get together.
Add these up and you’ve got a hotbed that the viruses are just loving! But that’s my thought on it. I’m sure there are actual virus experts out there who know way more about it than me, but I felt like ranting, damn it!
Thank you, Coldesta. That felt great! 😀
“We do it from the belief that the world cannot turn without us pushing paper at our jobs(…)”
It also doesn’t help when the *Boss* says “I don’t care if you’ve got E-f**kin’-bola! If you don’t come in today, don’t bother coming in again *EVER*!” (This has actually happened to me. Working through the flu with a boss who cares more about his quarterly performance bonus than his employees is *NOT* fun. Luckily it wasn’t in a food-service job…)
Yup. That is definitely something I have gone through. Didn’t know if that was a common factor or not. Hopefully those types of bosses are exposed for the terrible people they are and dealt with accordingly.
Yeah, once when I was really sick, I called that bluff. “You can do without me for two days, or you can do without me FOREVER. It’ll take you a LOT longer than 2 days to even FIND someone else, and YOU will have to train my replacement WITHOUT my help while doing BOTH of our jobs AND babysitting the newcomer at the same time. OR I’ll be back in a couple of days.” At the time, I was too sick to care. In hindsight, I’m both still angry and consider myself lucky it worked.
I have a friend who, once upon a time, was working for a graphics company. The company would always pay my friend late, often times they would underpay what the agreed upon price per hour was and they used my friend more as a work mule, rather than an employee. Eventually, my friend demanded a 33% raise for all the shit that the company was putting them through.
The company agreed almost instantly, with a jab that fell along the lines of: We were wondering when you’d finally ask. Suffice to say, my friend did not remain with that company after the raise due to their terrible policy on employee retention. My friend is much more happy now, or at least, that’s what I’m told.
You know who you are, friend. I am so happy that things have gotten better for you 🙂
(My friend reads My Hero! and I would prefer not to drop names)
Ye won’t get an argument from me on that. To compound on your description, I’ve had the misfortune to see office conditions where they turn any absence into an infarction and after so many a year you can be fired, even with a doctor’s note or hospitalization.
Get it off your chest, it’s good.
Then toss it at your boss’ face and make sure HR nails him under the sickness policy. Unless manglemant has claws in there.
Hmm, it would seem that some of our poison victims did not get a fully fatal dose. Probably wise. A few more returning characters should help things along.
Maybe they can be returned as undead, if anything else fails. I don’t know if there are undead in this world, but assuming there are, if Hasera can’t heal for life, she should learn to raise undead at least. Handy trick in combat or social interactions.
You have unlocked Cindrani’s Gift as a description!
Those that are known as ‘undead’ are mindless creatures that wander the land, looking to siphon out essence from anything they can find in order to sustain their insatiable hunger. Undead have no ability to think outside of hunting or eating. They are a true threat and due to where they originally came from, a danger to every living thing.
Unclaimed are those that died on the planes of Alteria, but whose souls were so filled with regret, unhappiness, malice or hate, that Cindrani would claim them. Cindrani, argued as the most powerful of the Gods in Alteria, would see the spirit of the recently departed and, if she found it to be lacking, would intercept its transferal to the strife, thereby preventing another God from claiming the essence of the spirit.
Cindrani would then remake the spirit whole from her own essence, granting it a second chance in the world of Alteria while taking the original spirit back with her to her Plane, locked into an eternal partnership with her to partake in her endless party in a vessel of her choosing.
These new creatures created from Cindrani’s will are like their previous roles in life, but slightly different. Each of the races have their own specific category of Unclaimed descriptors, Neutrals gain small fangs and pointed ears, Seraph wings become translucent and their feet seemingly evaporate as they float about, but one thing that binds them all together is Cindrani’s mark – a skull pattern on the face (Unique to each individual) that glows in the dim light of the faded Oculus (Think night time glow paint).
These Unclaimed of Cindrani often times have their personalities altered somewhat. Anxieties that prevented them from living a full life would be lessened, fears of mortality would be squashed and most inhibitions that prevented the individual from having fun would be deadened. In this way, Cindrani ensures that the spirit will have succeeded in having fun in life, unlike their previous incarnation.
The side effect of these changes often makes Unclaimed to be a lot more like their new-found Goddess. Quick to act, always looking for a good time and fearless in the face of adversity. Some would consider this a boon, but if you’ve ever had the pleasure of sitting beside an Unclaimed in class, you would know that they are incapable of remaining quiet for any amount of time.
Another benefit of being Unclaimed is that, generally, Cindrani cares little for how ‘mortals’ work. This means that most Unclaimed do not require breath, food, water, or any other of those nonsensical things that Cindrani has no time for. (Drinking, while not required, is often done for fun because booze is the best, same goes for eating things)
Most Unclaimed have a specific way to be undone. A spear through the heart or a severing of the head if often times not enough to kill one of these creatures. Cindrani is one for irony and a lover of puzzles. Each of her creations has a specific way for them to be unraveled. Some are more generic than others. One unclaimed may be only able to be destroyed by sharing a bed with their loved one, one last time. Another may only be unmade once she has finally forgiven her lover for poisoning her father. While even another may only be killed by the sword that had killed him in his previous life.
A few traits Unclaimed share is that they cannot stand the touch of lesser metals (Gold or silver only, as Cindrani would say). All Unclaimed have the capability of siphoning essence from other beings through various means – though this is generally only ever used to heal themselves from wounds, rather than some kind of feeding. All Unclaimed have yellow eyes.
The massive downside of being Unclaimed is that Cindrani is fickle. Do not entertain her enough, or anger her and she may remove her essence from you, thus causing a sort of starvation. Once the tether to Cindrani is severed, it is only a matter of time before you succumb to the hunger and become a mindless undead.
Undead are often times fully aware of what they do and while they fight the urge to feed to survive, it always becomes stronger than their will. Often times undead are found feeding on those that cared for them before finally being put down by a Champion. Undead do not share in Cindrani’s irony of death. Removal of the head or destruction of the physical body is often times enough to kill an undead, but exceptions have been encountered.
The only true way to define a fresh undead from an Unclaimed is Cindrani’s mark, if it glows, Cindrani’s Gift is still present, if it is dulled or non-existent in the pale glow of the Oculus, then the creature before you is an undead.
Well, it is a fatal dose with no healers present. It would seem the original plan was to murder all the Guardians and to poison and kill off the Champions, thus ensuring a TPK, so to speak
That’s the problem with Delvers: their arses are too close to the ground so they have to walk slowly to avoid getting gravel rash on their genitals 😛
You can tell the path of a male Delver by the furrow they leave behind 😀