hi im going to be writing random things that i have ideas for in this thread
as posted in cookie thread, im gonna start with making weird “death blurbs” that, if i were hosting virtuous, would be posted alongside a role’s death as their flavor. or otherwise virtuous inspired things.
maybe i’ll expand. but we’ll see. also no guarantees I actually do anything. non-binding commitment.
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“The Duke”
this is definitely less of a “death blurb” and more of a “prologue” kind of thing but whatever. fuck it we ball
The Duke sat on the edge of their bed, after failing to fall asleep, contemplating how it got to this point.
Before the Great Conspiracy, they had been an apprentice of the old Mastermind. Killing was their specialty, and it was their job to silence the Blue Dragon, because anyone who could not accept the truth did not deserve to live. At least, that’s what they were taught.
After the Mastermind overthrew the Blue Dragon and crowned herself Queen, however, suddenly there was a Kingdom to run, not just a scheme to follow through with, and they had to go through mountains of paperwork just to get an “official execution” sanctioned. It was a far different feeling than the days of assassinating people for their actual crimes. Now the “Duke” (they hated the noble title, but it did afford some security), had to go through and look at clearly forged documents proving the guilt of someone who had not done any wrong, except oppose the Queen in some minor fashion, then sentence them to death. God, they were bad at hiding the corruption of it all.
Was this really what they had fought so hard to create? The Queen demanded absolute loyalty, and so far the Duke had exhibited nothing but. They needed to, after all, to ensure their own survival and the stability of the realm.
It crossed the mind of the Duke that maybe they were not so better than the Blue Dragon after all, but they pushed it away. It couldn’t matter anymore, what’s done is done.
Eventually, the Duke fell asleep. Then, it all began to unfold, piece by piece.
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“The Marshal”
Normally, the Marshal’s job is much easier. Looking through obviously forged paperwork & planted evidence and just saying “Guilty!” is a lot less stressful than looking through actual evidence, let alone real paperwork.
In a different time, the Marshal would have thought that the public surely would have found out and revolted. But new experience taught him that the masses will accept anything as long as it fits their existing worldview, which is easy to exploit when you gave them that worldview. If they find out in the first place.
But when the Queen died, it fell to the Marshal’s expertise to investigate the murder. After all, he did have experience doing just that. Whoever it was, they were good at covering some of their tracks and horrible at covering other signs. This was probably intentional. There was no evidence of the murder weapon anywhere, other than a single cut at the Queen’s throat.
Strangely, compared to the body, the room was in disarray. The Queen had several bookshelves in her room, mostly just for the look of being educated, but several of the books were stolen, and there were pages across the entire room. The marshal sketched a vague diagram of what the room liked like, and then collected the pages. They might provide something later, especially in coordination with the Archivist.
In the mean time, the “Unseen” (a council that occasionally met when matters of significant importance need to be decided, named after the old organization) was assembled to blame someone for the murder. The Unseen cared not who it was, so long as they could blame someone.
Eventually, they settled on a Duchess, who despite not being related to the Queen at all was a Duchess anyways. It was determined that they could say she was fairly close in line for the throne, and murdered the Queen in an attempt to get closer. She was executed without a second thought.
That night, the Marshal pulled out the papers he had collected from the Queen’s room and attempted to make sense of them. Each of them were not from any book; in fact, it looked as if they were written specifically for this. There was a couple of letters on each of them, but even combined it didn’t make any sense.
Then he realized it was a simple cipher. “How stupid are these people?” he thought, before computing the cipher and realizing what it said.
“WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE. YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR SINS”
When the Marshal was found dead the next morning, hunched over their desk, they had barely scribbled out the words “Blue Dragon.”
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Kind-of Unrelated Thing That I Felt Like Writing
“The Chronomancer”
The Chronomancer had dissapeared swiftly after the Unseen conspiracy had been uncovered. The castle probably presumed her dead, and they wouldn’t live to learn that she wasn’t anyways, so it didn’t really matter. She could not do anything to what was now past; time magic, as it happens, can only look into the past. Can’t change the past, after all. Despite common perception, her strongest influence was the present; the further into the future she attempted to go, the more her powers diminished. The more important an event is, the more fate wants it to happen, and the farther away it is, the more ways it can unfold.
When the Assassin came to kill her she was able to prevent her own death, but it took all of her strength and she ended up trapped in her pocket dimension. The convolutions and intricacies of her powers lined up perfectly against her, and she was effectively trapped.
She didn’t know how long she had been there for now, just wandering in the empty void. She did not know when it would end, or when she would be able to DO anything. To be with nothing but your thoughts was a prison with no guards, yet maximum security. To know not if escape was even possible was a torment by the legions of Mithras himself.
Location: pocket dimension
Time: a long time after
Reason: a little glimpse of hope
Rifts usually close in a fraction of a second. The rift that had appeared in front of her was still open, but at any moment it could stabilize itself and vanish. She quickly jumped on the opportunity. Her senses contorted, and suddenly she saw something like the world she recognized. An exit?
No. She had no control. She was viewing something through the eyes of another. A potential future. Better than nothing, she thought.
She heard a knock at the door. She got up, and opened the door to answer it. Before her were soldiers, clad in armor. “Wh-” she began, but the soldiers cut her off.
“The Duke has issued a warrant for your execution. It will be swift and painless.” Before she could react, the soldiers had grabbed her and put her in a wagon she knew was only reserved for the worst kinds of criminals. Why? Why would she be executed? All she ever did was work the fields. She kept company with a few of the other villagers from time to time, but they were good-hearted!
She arrived at the castle without the guards speaking a word. They took her out of the wagon over the light of the moon, escorted her to a cell, before shackling her to the ceiling. A person, face obscured and holding a sword, appeared in front of her her.
“Do you have any final words, traitor?” they declared as they pointed the sword at her throat.
They did not wait before they slashed, and the vision ended. The Chronomancer was alone again, with more questions than ever.
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