Sorry...as in the notification email arrived nearly 2.5 hours after the post, as opposed to the email reporting that the timestamp on the post was out by nearly 2.5 hours?

Rosario Dawson

[1448 steps]

PM'd just now, with relief.

Happiest of happy birthdays to you!

Phill/Summers


One eyebrow quirked upward slightly when he caught Nic's questioning look and he shrugged slightly. He was not sure there was a right way to go or a correct goal to seek.

He wished he had an idea of how they'd gotten here and at who's behest.

In the meantime, he'd follow his two companions. Phil had to trust somebody, he supposed.

Bekkah

She felt suddenly alone, but it wasn't something that bothered her. She often spent many days alone and she relished the peace, at least in smaller doses. She often used the time to share her thoughts with her Lady. Here in the keep, speaking to her Goddess might be frowned upon. Well maybe not frowned upon, but it could make some nervous. She entered the keep and began to walk around to see if she could help in some way. She was not good at doing things for herself. She was made to serve. She knew nothing else. She never had.

Happy Birthday Don!

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Snowgate Keep, Training Yard
Hasday, the Twelfth Day of Tiger

Daxia, TeeCee, Kasha, and Rishka

"If you don't mind..."

Kisa finally sat up a bit.

"I would like to spend the morning reading. In a soft chair. With my feet up on a hassock. In front of a fire. With my sister in her chair next to me. And we shall, between fascinating paragraphs, discuss matters that may, but probably not, include the nature of proclamations. I admit there is nothing like the life of an adventurer, but I find myself, at times, missing the chance to truly relax and be no one more than I truly am.

"As for you?"

Kisa gently pushed at Daxia.

"Go. Visit your temple sisters. You and I may share many contrary things, but me not being very good at that type of training doesn't do you much good. And I promise, if I do end up playing with my tiles, it will be exactly just that."

***************

The training ground was a small court within the castle walls. It was wide enough to have a place where horses could make a decent-sized circle and long enough to make the targets at the far end a definite challenge. There were pells and training dummies and a rack of various and sundry wooden practice weapons. Swords, of course, were the most common. But there were also spears and polearms as well as a few short swords.

It seemed the girl with black hair and her current partner preferred the shorter blades; indeed, they seemed to thrill at being so close up and personal.

"Rishka you met. She looks like a princess and has the build of a willow tree and why she hasn't ended up handfasted to some fat merchant is beyond me. She will not talk about it, but I suspect something like that is why she left Trundle-on-the-Hill and fought her way to Dawnview. She showed up on my doorstep one rainy night and told me she needed to learn how to fight for something. That threw me a bit; we always have had kids from the Vale coming up to ask to be taught fighting, but that simple bit more was a first.

"The blonde she's fighting? Came up from Bordertown, oh, I'd say she had to have left a month or so after a certain battle occurred between the town and the Roth treeline. That's Kasha. She’s the brute of the two; I think she came from farmer stock and has a tendency to swing first and ask questions afterward. Kasha usually plays with the biggest sword she can carry; she's now swapped to short sword and shield because she got tired of Rishka chasing her around the field. You notice I had only one of them up for morning breakfast.

"That's because you put the two of them together and trouble's bound to happen. It's never really their fault, but if they weren't promised to Our Lady I'm sure the Fox would have snatched those two up.

"Personally I think it’s a bit late for that. If they had once been prey, something happened to make them predators before they got here.

"Now don't let that fierceness out there distract you. Since my Khorall suggested I toss them into the same room, they've become the very best of friends. The problem being is that they are starting to think they are immortal. And that's dangerous.

"I haven't been able to figure out how to teach them they aren't.

"Which leads to my other problem."

"If I was being the best teacher for them, I'd toss them out of the Vale to go wandering.

"But they are the two best I have. And my first duty is to protect our Khorall.

"Besides..."

The Captain crossed her arms. It was an odd group Eleni had collected about her. They seemed more like family than retainers. A herd of odd ducks.

"I am afraid they wouldn't come back. And then I'd be forced to admit I would miss them."

She then gave Daxia a look, one that seemed suspiciously Kassia-ish.

"So, perhaps I start by bringing the outside world to them.

"Go to it."

The Heartwood
Dawnview Vale
Snowgate Keep
Hasday, the Twelfth Day of Tiger

Bekkah, Cesare, Daxia, Keiko, Lyric, Anatoli, Eleni, Kisa, Nadya, and Tomomi

"Fighting, fighting, fighting, and more fighting? Is that all you ever think of? It is so unfair. I mean, while Kisa and I were taught to us a dagger, it's not like there are many threats in the Vale..."

Eleni had lifted her head, shook out her short hair, and finally seemed to have woken up to her rambling self as she looked at the two Rhoni. As she continued on, Kisa latched onto her last few words. Glancing to Daxia and then to Keiko, the older sister simply cocked her head a little bit, as if she were silently putting pieces of several conversations together.

"...but it's just not fair. I wish I could learn that too. I have never liked feeling like I am the littlest of us and it really hurt when that old witch Kassia said the best way for me to fight was to hide behind one of my servants."

Now it was time for one of those servants to squirm a bit and turn a lighter shade of pale.

"I'm supposed to protect them, not hide behind them, right?"

"No."

That last word was spoken from a woman in armor, the one standing behind them all. She, too, was a redhead with hair that was clipped short at her shoulders. In fact, it looked like Eleni's rough trimming was an attempt to match the other woman's pragmatic choice. She wore a hauberk of brigantine — white with silver fittings over which she wore a black and white surcoat identifying her as serving Snowgate Keep. The white and silver? Perhaps they were a hint of her home, as those were the colors of Glacier Keep.

"Of course, respectfully no, my Khorall. It is our task to do the protecting. Your task is to rule this keep and watch over the entrance to the Vale. While we are the first line protecting Dawnview Vale, you are its last and best hope, you see what we cannot, you are the one who wields us. You will be the first to see the hints of trouble that walk through those gates. Every day you look down that pass and cannot help but know the cost of defending them. Knowing this, it is also our task to trust you, to believe that if it was ever to come to such, you would not ask that of us lightly."

Eleni's head immediately dropped back atop her arms, nose to the tabletop.

"Great, wonderful. Perfect. Thank you, TeeCee, for totally ruining the mood and reminding me just how life-or-death important every little thing I do is. You're worse than Nadya, you know. She just swats me and tells me to stop being a child."

TeeCee simply smiled and nodded her head politely.

"You are more than welcome, my Khorall. And I would, but my hand is a lot harder than Lady Nadya's and it would not do to have you go into Court with a black eye. As for black eyes, now that is a different subject."

The Captain of Eleni's guard looked at Dazi, choosing then to answer her Sister's query.

"Actually, none. If one of us actually has a desire to knock one of us on our backsides, I usually grab them by the scruff of their neck and find the closest watering trough."

Beside her, another of the Snowgate guards, dressed in the traditional black and silver with matching long black hair, bit her lip and looked askance.

"Sparring is to help each other learn. However, to that very end, there's a pair of roughnecks who I wouldn't mind seeing some good honest sense beaten into them. For their proper education, of course. One came from Bordertown and one from, oh, some odd little mountain town at the end of nowhere. Where was it? What was its name again? Trimbletown? Trufflesville? Topsy-turv..."

Before she could complete that last syllable, the black-haired initiate twisted her nose and grumbled a response.

"Trundle-on-the-Hill."

"Oh yes! That's it, Trundle-on-the-Hill."

TeeCee nodded once, her attention having never left Daxia.

"Would you be up to that, Verchovai Yurisdotter? If so, we gather at the chapel courtyard a little after breakfast. I'm sure Rishka here could show you the way. That correct, Rishka-ling?"

The dark-haired lass wrinkled her nose again.

"Yes Captain, my Captain, my one and only Captain who I owe everything too and is sure to remind me of that every bloody day, too. Bother. Pah. Apologies. Bloody isn't lady-like."

It certainly seemed that Daxia wasn't the only one saddled with unique apprentices. TeeCee took it completely in stride.

"Correct."

All that was left was to then go off on their appointed tasks.

Please ignore any PM that I may, like a total lummox, have just posted in entirely the wrong thread....sigh

Okay, I have a few people interested, and the Forum is up... thanks Mike!

If you are interested, take a look at the Forum DTT: Angel Harbor. Lots of information there. The Behind the Scenes sub-fora holds the background information about the town as well as information on the system, character sheet, etc.

If you would like to star on a new supernatural soap opera...

Creating a character is easy for DTT: Angel Harbor!

1) Send me a brief character sketch, what kind of character and stories you are hoping to bring to the show.
2) When we are both happy with the concept, fill out a character sheet (in the Behind the Scenes section).
3) Title the PM with the character sheet DTT: (Character Name)
4) Post in the Stars (PCs) thread. Let everyone know who your character is.
5) Create, and share, NPCs as needed - they should be important to your character in some way: Friends, Enemies, Frenemies. The waiter you met once does not need to be created.


Note when creating a character:
All characters start out as normal. You want someone who is cursed to turn at the full moon? Cast a spell or two to summon a demon? Have a dead BFF that pops up? That will start sometime after the game begins.

Keep an eye on the NPCs as you should select a few to put into your character background, and add to their story.

Welcome! Pull up a chair, this is a wonderful place to be!