Candidate for Dhiammarath & Vuzjavalasith's Clutch (IGW45)
This area is to keep track of Rhyvin's Candidate adventures. Logs, feels, favorite eggs, etc!
Candidates:
Rhyvin, Dulcinea, Kopriva, Althea, Morticia, Obscian, Ralisared, Kalliste, Marlys, Pyril, Sabaon, Tahmuras, Laerki, and Elodie
The Eggsperience
The Stars Spin On Egg
Darkness covers, caresses, soothes this egg's shell in a comforting embrace. Shifting shadows of the universe spin around and around in never ending swirls, onwards to eternity. Flashes of white, of yellow, of red, streaks of light penetrating the darkness until they too vanish.
Rhyvin's steps echo no more or less than those around him, his group moving in a clustered being of many legs. His own detachment brings upon his visage one of apparent boredom, though his lie would be caught with a healer's listening tube for his heart is racing in cacophony of pom-puff pom-puff pom-puff. Licking dry lips, he separates from the crowd, keeping any draconic parent within eyesight, but he waits a bit for the crowd to die down, to disperse before making his selection with a somewhat wry look. With so many to choose from, he picks at (seeming) random, hands coming to rest upon the shell of The Stars Spin On Egg. Did someone in the galleries just squeak? Surely not!
Darkness. Only darkness. You are suspended in a stagnant miasma of shadow that doesn't even deign to swirl around you in emulation of movement. You are alone here. Terribly, terribly alone. There is only the vaguest sense of being watched - but is that just latent paranoia? Fear? Are you just thinking to yourself? Surely you must be, for nothing seems to echo back from the endless void. Existential dread locks itself into the fringes of everything you are before, at long last, you are pulled closer to something that promises meaning - a sudden explosion of stars into a constellation that shifts and swirls in strange patterns around you, as if to examine you from all angles. What is life? Does life have meaning? Does your life have meaning? Questions pitter-patter down from the heavens like radiation, battering at your cells. Does the meaning matter at the end of time, when all is ash and dust - and then nothing? Should it? And what if nothing matters, in the end, but matter itself? The stars spiral tighter and tighter, until one falls free and the alignment is broken. Uncertain, the inhabitant seems to fall apart. It does matter, it seems to think, doesn't it? Doesn't it? Those words echo as the mind falls away, lost in a spiral of its own making.
Rhyvin stumbles back with a gasp, as if everything was sucked away. As if nothing existed. As if life itself hung in the balance of starlight, haunting the memory like an afterburn image of bright lights. Once, so long ago, he tried to do the unthinkable, and those memories rush up and co-mingle with the here-and-now. A quick glance around escapes his tight control, but before the furtive look is even gone, the boy's righted himself. He's allowed to be here. Blindly, blindly, he moves and touches the Unseen Horrors Egg without realizing what his fingers graze.
Unseen Horrors Egg
Shadows enfold this egg almost completely - but such enwrapping cannot ever be entirely complete. There are faint horizontal bandings of grey, suggestive of light through cloth; the darker parts folded upon themselves. From apex to base, it seems swaddled in material as if to shield- what? The egg from sight? Or the viewer from what lies beneath? A riddle, perhaps, but if one's dedicated enough, they'll find a sliver of suggestion at the base of the egg, where sand is most often heaped. But what is it? What could it mean? The skating of light over striations only leaves more questions than answers.
And, suddenly, you are as blind as your touch was. Darkness shivers around you, but this darkness is a protective kind; a shield, a barrier, a shelter. Light creeps in at the edges of your vision and a cautious tug pulls it all away, revealing a world overrun with plants and animals and the forgotten remains of a cothold that's long ago lost to the elements. Where you are, no one has been for a long time - or so it seems. And then, abruptly, there's something behind you - out of sight, yes, but the sounds it makes are so very tempting. So very, very tempting. Don't you want to look? To see? Don't you want to know what the future will hold for you? If you but turn around, all those secrets will be revealed - but will you? Dare you? Such a siren's song is too good to be true, is it not? How strong are you? How strong do you think you are? Questions pop and sizzle, nibbling at the edges of your mind - until the dark returns and a memory of something beautiful lingers like an afterimage behind your eyelids.
Monsters. Rhyvin's fall back could be a fall through space and time, through darkness, and into the light of day. Sweating, breathing erratic, questions batter his thoughts, skidding through the meats of the thing between the walls of his skull. He gasps, involuntarily losing his cool in this scene, this sense, for the images are dark — so much darker than ever he imagined they would be. Regulating his breath with difficulty, he glances first at the one-eyed woman and then at Ralisared, if he can see the candidate who's face he can pin a name on. Undeterred, however, Rhyvin grits his teeth and turns back to the eggs. They will not break him. The Moon is a Harsh Egg is where his fingers touch, coming to rest upon hardening, leathery shell.
The Moon is a Harsh Egg
Timor or Belior rising, having fallen to Pern; the impression first given with this particularly circular egg, showing the be-speckled aurora of grey along its surface familiar to any night-sighters. Easily, at a glance, this could be all. Until it unveils, slowly, with visual creep: an inky, smoky, blackness, not part of that shadow, but pursuer on the outer frame of the egg itself, transforming its celestial circular frame into the ovoid of life. If it is not soothing it, instead. As the blackness lends a sense of impenetrability enemy to any meant to break through this mystery. No comfort can be found, either, at the egg’s weighty bottom. For it is veins of red found there, twining across paths of moonscape like an infection. An intruder. But if it is an intruder within the blood, then the disease is internal — transformative — it is natural, after all.
Oh, oh, oh, but your touch seems destined for the dark - though, this time, this time, it doesn't start that way. Cool metal and glass in inconceivable quantity surrounds you, shaping hall upon hall of a clinically labyrinthine space. There, stairs ascend; there, blinking lights indicate something or another. But what? None of this makes sense within Pernese reckoning, a special kind of dream that only one who has never seen the light could dream. The cool glow of another chamber awaits and, as you are all but summoned to it, the dreamer wonders: do you hunt monsters - or do you fear them? Shadows flicker in peripheral vision, horrific entities that wink in and out of being, impossible to see directly. Do you like mysteries? Stories without a perfect ending? Messy conclusions? Dangling threads? All the while, the shadowforms move, though none lay a hand on you - as if merely observing. Listening. How did you get here? Why? What are you here for? Questions, questions, all without words but implied all the same continue for a time until, exhausted, some aperture opens and you are jettisoned into the dark - if for just a moment, until reality comes shining back in.
Questions. So many, and yet all collecting into one question, one moment's understanding… Rhyvin's control doesn't slip quite so badly this time, but he's slow to withdrawn the hand and when he does, fingers curl against his palm while taking a deep, shuddering breath. This one in neon-bright gleam catches his eye and he steps forward, pushing himself to touch the shell's edge of A Stray's Life Lost In A.I. Egg.
A Stray's Life Lost In A.I. Egg
Hues of brilliant reds and blues dots the darkened, grime-stained eggshell. Neon in their brightness as if the very brilliance of the soul within seeps out in a gift of glory, of exploration, of the adventurer's spirit undaunted by a dead and broken world. Tiny, the shape of the egg lends itself well to being overlooked where it rests, crowded by the looming shape of its brethren. A hint of tiny feet trace blurred lines woven into a scene reminiscent of a tightly compacted hold… if one were to squint their eyes. Otherwise, dull browns and blacks are relieved of their austerity by bright lights of hope.
The world's focus suddenly shifts, lurching downward to a level closer to your shins than your natural sight. The world is confusing! Bright! But this one seems to be taking it all in stride, carrying you along on a fluid, flowing journey through tight tunnels and along narrow catwalks. Appropriate, really - did you just hear it purr? Are felines hiding in this egg? The world, dizzying, bright, full of life and light, is balanced against an awareness of the dark. But- you're here for the light, right? The adventure? The journey? Who cares where it goes or ends, right? What matters is exploration! Travel! Isn't that why you're here? For something new? To experience life through a different lens? to meow at will?! Optimism sparks bright in those final moments before some vermin catches the inhabitant's attention and it darts away, separating you from it and leaving the faint sensation of fur tickling at your ankles.
For a moment Rhyvin stands, transfixed. Almost as if nothing… but wait. He shakes his head, instinct having him looking up before realizing he's not shin-sized anymore. Once again, tongue skates along dry edge of lips before he girds himself for one more egg touch. One more is all his heart can take, all he can take. When Ralisared steps by and around him, he finds a sardonic half-smile turning up the side of his mouth as if… as if even in the midst of this internal existential nightmare, bonding is had. Then? Then he lays his hands on A Cataclysmic Path Egg and waits for what's to come.
A Cataclysmic Path Egg
Ashen pallor claims this egg, rendering it a bleak landscape for two charcoal-smudged figures upon it. One large, one small, they seem to have a cart of some sort before them. A smearing of the ashy hues implies a road, but it is a road that stretches long, winding 'round and 'round the egg with no beginning and no end. There is nothing in the world depicted on eggshell; only that path, those figures, and no way of knowing if either of them will reach those dots of fiery gold ringing the crown of the egg as if they were fires on hilltops.
Ash swirls in the air and around your feet, churned up to make something of a path forward. The landscape is bleak and featureless, save for shadowy hills in the distance that wink and glitter with fire. You are not as alone as you think, but this path is a lonely one to start - it's only after a moment, maybe two, that something feels like it joins you along for the journey. There is companionship. Company. Friendship of the kind that can only be forged when you and the other are the only ones left in this world. And so you get to talking about this or that, until matters of grave importance bubble up as they do. Would you do what you needed to do, no matter how hard? Is your heart strong enough to do what's right and necessary - even if the world's gone lawless and strange? Are you still able to trust others? How far does that trust extend? What kind of man are you? What kind of man do you want to be? The fires come a little closer - now, now, now it's clear that you're not alone at all after all - but before the fighting begins? You're gone, whisked away and back to the Sands with a bittersweetness on the tongue.
Rhyvin comes back to himself, realizing he's staring at Ralisared as if trust in his fellow candidate has faded like ashen dust to grave fingers of wind. Blinking once, twice, thrice, he clears his throat and yanks his hands back from the egg's shell. His body burns with sensations remembered, blending fires and ash other imagery into one great tapestry of chaos. "Excuse me," mumbled, murmured, stuttered. For once, Rhyvin does not wait to be excused, does not follow protocol, but instead seeks refuge in the cooler air of Igen's dry summer. Only when the warmth of dry heat dissipates sweat into nothing heavier than a salt crust does he find himself able to think; yet that will be later, when Rukbat's descent into madness is all but decided as the night draws closer. The night, with all its horrors. And so in the now, in the here, Rhyvin bristly walks away, exiting stage left.
Logs Attached to This Egg
Scene: More eggs are touched. More lives are damaged changed.
Log: Eggs and Emotional Betrayal
Some Strings Attached - Rhyvin Searched!
2023.06.06
A chance encounter in the galleries yielded a twisting of fate's knots - Rhyvin was offered the opportunity to Stand, the knot coming with requisite strands of duty and purpose.
Also, he might be needed to keep an eye on a pair of devious clutchparents who may or may not be building decoy egg mounds.
Jh'yk and Aerenniuth will be keeping an eye on all of them.
OOC: And we have our first candidate! Woo! Congratulations to Rhyvin and welcome to candidacy!
Search Scene
Scene: On the heels of getting sent home, Rhyvin enters the sacred scene and encounters Jh'yk…
Log: (Some) Strings Attached
Introducing Rhyvin!
Brought in from High Reaches by then-Weyrleader R'xim to guard the eggs when first Nasrin's queen and then Linny's queen took to the sands nearly a turn ago, Rhyvin is as High Reaches as they come. Austere, proud, committed, and motivated to better his life, tone his body, and hone his mind — all for the greater good of guarding. Or so it seems, anyway. With that near-double clutch Candidacy, where the sands were lost and the Pit became the place for eggs to hatch, Rhyvin stood guard, but was not a Candidate. So why does he sport a Candidates knot now? And why has he, as one of the first, taken the best bunk? As is his way, he's tight-lipped about much, but maybe not about his more conservative leanings and his belief in High Reaches superiority.
OOC: I'm super excited to play with everyone and bond with ya'll! It's an exciting time! My general availability is M-F, ~7/8a PST -> ~3p PST. <3 <3
Dulcinea, Braazar Songbird
Rumors are that Dulcinea had been searched WEEKS before showing up to hand her knot and name to those in charge. Since then, she has mainly kept to herself. Those that hang out in the Braazar, however, will recognize her face as someone that has made the circuit of different entertainment venus as a new and up-and-coming star, which begs the question of why she is now here in the barracks.
OOC: Hey everyone, I am looking forward to all the drama. My general times to be on is M-F, 4pm-10 pm CST. But as it is summer, I am off during the day, so hit me up on Discord or page me, if you want a scene earlier than 4.
Introducing Kopriva!
Arriving in Igen together with two others from Keroon Sea Hold, Kopriva was Searched by Khu and brown Ixzhulqvoth. The details surrounding all the how's and why's, including being so far north from Southern … are not known yet. She does not come from any Craft and had, until now, been working in the lower caverns in Southern. Kopriva is still settling in and finding her footing; Igen is fully new, though life in a Weyr is not. Kind and approachable, Kopriva's default is to be unobtrusive, a stickler for her routines and dutiful with the chores or tasks given to her. When she truly gets comfortable (IF she ever fully does), Kopriva may start to collect bits of scrap materials for a few small creative projects for those lulls of time; she is not often, if ever, fully idle.
OOC: I am very excited to have the chance to RP with everyone! <3 <3 Search is one of my favorite times to play and I hope to be able to catch any and all for some fun~ My availability tends to be a stitch all over the place, but I am usually on (barring RL) evenings from 7-10pm EST — sometimes, I can be here daytime-hours on Monday or various hours on the weekends!
Introducing Althea
Who knew getting tossed the low-person-on-the-totem-pole job of delivering a package from a more senior Harper would end up with receiving a white knot from Khu and Ixzhulqvoth along with another new candidate in a two-for-one? Althea had only recently been sent from Harper Hall to Southern Weyr, only there for about a week, and now she is uprooted once more.
ooc: I am new to the game as well as to Igen, and I am looking forward to getting to know everyone!
Morticia
Morticia came to trade, and ended up with a candidate knot!
She's a southern wildling who loves pottery, and other weird, creepy things, so don't be surprised at the occasional story about spinners.
Catch her full bio on the Wiki!
Obscian- Muddy and Bugbitten
What can be said about Obscian? He arrived in the barracks, muddy, bugbitten, and with a smear of oil on the side of his face, fresh from the worst hold on Pern. The moment he opened his mouth, more than one of the other candidates cringed. That voice! That loud, grating, high pitched, screeching voice! Surely, his being there is a mistake. Surely, no respectable dragon could have picked someone that sounds like that as a potential rider! His voice is the only thing about him thats even remotely impressive. On top of that, much to the displeasure of his neighbors, the boy snores. Like a dying wher. It's awful.
At least he's friendly?
OOC: Hi! I am so excited to be able to RP with you all! And I am SO SORRY for Obis PB. XD (Gilbert Gottfried. With a voice like that, I just couldn't resist using it!) My online hours are pretty sporadic, at the moment, but I can usually make sure to be online for anything scheduled and I can be reached on Discord (as either Kiasyth or S'en/Alia/Thae/Rad/Obi) to schedule on-grid scenes. I can do docs or Discord scenes, if I have to, but I tend to forget about them so prefer on-grid.
Ralisared!
The pretentious name almost matches the way he looks — if only his clothes were newer! — though Ralisared himself does not seem to embody total arrogance, nor any particular family line that can claim him. He typically tries to stay in his own lane, reserved though not necessarily aloof. Though he's been at the Weyr for the last turn, doing a mixture of heavy-labor jobs, he has settled quite nicely into candidacy, when a bargain was struck with Edric. The only one he'll be making. Don't expect him to bet on the eggs! …Maybe.
Availability: Mostly days, CST! Some evenings, after 7pm CST. Weekends are scattered, so they are my most unreliable for snagging a scene. I heavily prefer on-game scenes, but if times do not line up, I'd love to get a gdoc or Discord scene with you!
Introducing Kalliste
Kalliste is a prim and proper senior apprentice from the Starcraft. She originally hails from Katz Field Hold from a well-off family. While not Blood, she has been socialized as a proper lady with proper idea of pecking order. Starcraft was to be her holdover until she was to be married off, however when a dragonrider Searches you, you answer the call.
She'll find out soon enough that every candidate is the same rank (even if she thinks gold is her destiny as she was picked by the clutchsire himself). And that candidates lives are not easy. And she'll learn what the heat of the day feels like again after working many years in the Starcraft and in the dead of night. AND she'll be ostracized by her fellow Starcrafters for not following internal protocol and letting herself get Searched, especially right after the celestial discovery when they need all hands on deck. Kalliste is up for a lot of uncomfortable things.
OOC: This is a T'rin alt, from SearchCo! This'll be fun playing in the apocalyptic trenches with you all. :D
Marlys- Footsteps! In the night!
Wait… aren't there always footsteps? There's too many people in the barracks for there not to be. But, as an aside, Marlys aka Marla has been having a lot of trouble sleeping, and lately took that into quietly pacing up and down the barracks aisles like the ghost of candidates past. Has her shadowy figure been spotted? Her bare feet heard in continuous anticipation? All that can be known to be true is that she's narrowly avoided being questioned by the eagle-eyed (and eared) assistants posted at the front table to keep watch and should probably not test her luck much longer.
Character introduction: Pyril
Howdy, people!
Meet Pyril, your friendly neighborhood stablehand!
Pyril arrived at Igen along with a tithe wagon from the Beastcraft a few turns ago. Rumor is his family sent him to the Beastcraft to try for an apprenticeship there, and Pyril did not altogether meet the bar of "consistently smarter than the beasts", so the Hall opted to make him the Weyr's problem. If you know him, it's not a very hard rumor to believe. Either way, he's an easy-going chap, and has seemed plenty happy in his occupation as one of Igen's stablehands.
Recently he got talked into trying the experience of candidacy by Headman Edric, which means he's now more specifically the Weyrlingmasters' problem, for a time. Hopefully it will be a memorable time.
OOC: Hi! Delighted to join the gang, and looking forward to enjoying the heck outta candidacy with you all. I'm typically available most days 2pm to 4pm PST, a bit later on the weekends. Cheers!
Introducing: Tahmuras!
A guard transferred from the 'Reaches, Tahmuras is- well, one of the quieter sorts. He has a way with words (sometimes) and is generally perceptive, preferring to listen over speaking. Thus, soft-spoken is a fine way to describe him, though that comes at odds with a guard-trained physique. He's not exactly tall, dark, and handsome - but he's tallish, dark haired, and reasonably decent-looking in the right light.
ANYWAY!
There's not much else to really tell about him. He's about as nondescript as nondescript gets before it fades into full obscurity, but there are enough grabby bits of personality to gain social traction from time to time. In short, if you need a guard-type dude for things - physical training, sparring partner, someone to escort you through the Bazaar - hit him up!
OOC: FULL DISCLAIMER: this is absolutely another face of Khu, as if I do not have enough. xD A 'Co spy?! IN MY BARRACKS?! It's more likely than you think!
Laerki - A Conm- CANDIDATE Arrives!
A new face has joined the ranks of Igen Candidates! Laerki is charming, he's handsome, and ~ surely ~ he's an upstanding individual with a squeaky-clean record!
OOC: Laerki is a Kyriel alt! Woe, another searchco spy be upon ye
Connections
Igenites
tbd
Others
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