As you made your opinions of the last voting session quite clear, there was no new island in the month of February. However, that does not mean there should never be a new island ever again, which is why the Storyteller has stubbornly resumed the same voting efforts as before. Try and pick an actual island this time, if you please? Each island contains resources and dangers both - there is no reward without a little risk.

Those of you who were with us for October's Storytelling may find this scene familiar - only, instead for four glistening pyres, it's only three that rear out from the shadows, each glowing a different color. The strange material that domes them almost resembles worked steel, forming different patterns against their multicolored backdrops.

[ ♆ ] The first glows a deep crimson, kicking scarlet embers into the dream-night air. Its pit sphere portrays a crowd of people in silhouette, heads bowed in genuflection - paying homage to some looping, many-coiled shape in the sky above.

[ ♆ ] The second glows a deep orange. Its pit sphere is worked into the shape of a looming mountain, with what might be some sort of village or ruin sprawled at its base.

[ ♆ ] The third's flames are a rich green. Its designs are most abstract; the starburst patterns that swirl across the metallic composition of its fire pit sphere could be explosions, maybe...or something else entirely.

Beside each pyre is heaped a pile of sticks, colored to correspond to their respective flames. Hopefully it is clear that you must add your stick to whichever pyre you intend to vote for; though if you're confused, hopefully your fellow adventurers will be able to explain it to you.

This will, of course, decide your next island destination, and those abstracted renditions are all you have to go off of.

Once you have cast your votes, what happens next is purely routine.

( You know what comes next, adventurers. )

In the wake of what has occurred on Ziziphus, the Storyteller has not appeared for this night's sharing of tales. The campfire is ever-present, but a morose air hangs over the flames nonetheless.



There will be no voting this time around either. It seems the Storyteller is due for a break - and so are the rest of you.

( You know what comes next, adventurers. )

It is a dog that greets you, come the night of the Storytelling. The breed is indiscernible beneath the way the thick ruffs of smoke-black fur hang heavily from their lean frame, the entirety of them as pitch dark as the surrounding, metaphysical night save for the bright pink spot of their hanging tongue.

"I cannot fault you for choosing as you did," they murmur. "We had no way of knowing...we could not have seen what sort of civilization would be involved. If my reach could extend past my home..."

The words seem directed at themself, more than anyone else. With a swift shake of their coat, the dog regards the islanders once more, their eyes glittering in the firelight, rich as garnets.

"Three choices remain. I hope that, for all our sakes, the other islands on the horizon are far kinder than the first. The first will allow access to vegetation. The second, ore. The third, beasts."

There is little point in warnings. After all, it is not as if they predicted the outcome of your first choice - and it is not as though they were pleased to realize what that "civilization" entailed.

( You know what comes next, adventurers. )

Something is wrong.

This may not very well be obvious, at first. The Storyteller is not present to put forth yet another diatribe, informative or apologetic, and the backdrop of guttering flame and sandy campfire is as present as ever...albeit briefly.

( Wait...what does come next, adventures? )

It's beginning to become an awful habit, turning the beginning of these nights into an information session.

Still. It is rather effective.

( Read more... )

Mm, yep. This sure is a tagcloud.