The Reaping Season

Anything you might want to try out that doesn't temporally or thematically fit the serial should go here. This is an ideal space for all your what-ifs and might-have-beens, as well as for your average silliness.
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IamLEAM1983
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Re: The Reaping Season

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Three's stance on Alastriona - usually referred to as Alex, by him - still involved a mixture of both familiarity and unease. The new dryad's very existence, and the circumstances that had birthed her, still raised plenty of questions in him. While Chauncey treated her like a close colleague, Aidan still felt a little clumsy.

"Hey, Alex - it's Aidan. Listen; I know you've kept up with the news and, well, the guys and me would like to know if anything's set you off, somehow; if anything's tripped the old network..."

Alastriona wouldn't have sensed anything overt - no finger-pointing bursts of negatively-charged via bringing the face of the culprit to her, no transmitted agony of a sort - but the part of the old Centennial Tree's roots that hadn't yet caught on to its own demise had acted as any tree does in a clonal colony, and had now enmeshed themselves with the new tree's own root system. The old stump was gone for good, yes, but you wouldn't have needed to dig too far down in front of the memorial to reach a knot of partially-damp and partially-brittle wood. The old roots felt like a phantom limb to the new Tree, dessicated confluents sending back long, slow postmortem pulses - death on the scale of the Arboreal; slow, gentle and ponderous. That left the ghosts of Centennial Park with plenty to say.

If she strained a bit, Alex might recall a vague sense of proprioception; that a few of these old limbs that weren't hers had touched something repulsive, something that managed to evoke filth without so much as being physical in nature. She maybe would've noticed that these odd flashes came and went in time with the string of murders, and that one of her points of vague awareness likely lined up with the shipping docks - and the latest murder's location.

Only particularly aged dryads could assess an entire city without moving, and she wasn't anywhere near there. To pick up more, Alastriona might have to take part in the investigation...

As for Naberius' response; it had been as curt and courteous as he tended to be.

Of course. Ezekiel was visiting, as luck would have it. It seems you'll have a full complement. Until then, my dear.

Gabriel's full martial self wasn't seen often, of late, but the library's doors soon opened to Herbert and Gabrielle, the female aspect of the Archangel who had previously served as Herbert's masseuse, as they discussed.

"Yes," noted Wormsworth, "we should schedule a luncheon with Capstone's Employee Union spokesperson, see about transferring capital both fungible and arcane to their rainy-day fund, as a gesture of goodwill. No pecuniaries at present - that should wait until we're all seated.
- Wouldn't want to be seen flashing cash beyond even Greed's usual capability, of course," noted the young woman as she wrote things down. "Felt the pull yet, sir?" she then asked, which briefly left Herbert looking puzzled, as he glanced back at the others, however, things seemed to clear up.

"Ah, yes," he noted, mostly for his own benefit, "my first passive summons - how peculiar... I felt your concern from a floor up, Meris, and sensed I'd be needed, somehow..."

Gabby offered the group a polite smile. "He's still learning the ropes," she explained. "There's a lot of odd dials and knobs to Princedom, and no Owner's Manual..."

Herbert smirked at Meris. "On that unflattering note, can I safely assume this is related to the recent murders? It seems none amongst us can have a mystery percolating somewhere without things turning into a collaborative effort.
- I can think of weirder things," noted Drake, "like the new Prince of Pride being a nice guy."
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TennyoCeres84
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Re: The Reaping Season

Post by TennyoCeres84 »

"I've heard of stranger things than even that," Meris mused with a smirk, then briefly appearing thoughtful. "Perhaps it's your developing friendly empathy triggering your sense of summoning.

"Also, Naberius should be here soon. Ezekiel had been visiting with him, so it's likely we'll have some information from that."

Alex's irritation calmed further as she composed herself and recalled what she had sensed in the past weeks, the rises and falls in empathic signals from the remaining root system.

"It has, actually. I can hear other people in the background, so you may want to put this call on speaker phone," she explained.

Once he might've done that, she sighed and said, "Over the past weeks, the old root system has been sending me particular feelings that stand out from their regular ones. They're normally quiet and ponderous, but I have gotten feelings of repulsion from the roots. It's subtle but there. These sensations seem to occur in time with each of the murders. The most recent one came from somewhere around the shipping docks, as far as I can tell."

"I'd likely be able to tell you more, but my sensing abilities are limited due to my age. I'd need to follow my senses to the locations more directly to give you more input."

Her tone regained its previous bite. "Whoever is responsible for these murders needs to be found and stopped soon. I'm not particularly fond of demons, but the killer is throwing off my attempts at forming a balance in the via network. It has the potential to taint it even more beyond what was there from the incursions, which I've been working to cleanse on my own. This bastard's making my job harder."
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