Event desired: Lets go camping!Number of players: 3Timezone(s): Europe and 1 us timezoneSpecial requests (i.e. unique loot, enemies, etc. that may require additional lore team approval): NayNotes (Any additional information for the event):  Aoi is taking Osric and Klara camping. She wants to teach them survival skills that might be relevant to them in the future. So they'll be prepared. But anything can happen in the woods!!Please note: Osric and Klara are 12 and 14, respectively so nothing rule-breaking!

Alive.   She was alive.   Alive.   Alive..   Alive…   She had died, but she was alive. A grave had blossomed and out fell herself, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care that she was alive; she could have stayed dead, and she didn’t think she would mind.   Yet she was alive.   But Rowena- Sioned - She was also alive. That was all she cared about.   Maybe it was some sort of greed that still lingered from the curse; maybe it was a hope things could go back. Aoi wasn’t sure, but she knew she was alive.    “A light fell on you,” Roy had said, “But that vampire, he hit you fatally.”   He was dead.   Dead.   Dead..   Dead…   “Was the body burned?” “Not sure, I was too focused on you.”Fear.   Fear..   Fear…   He was dangerous; she knew that much. But it was not her main focus. She was alive. Sioned was alive, even if she called her a villain, even if every meeting ran into her trying to kill her, her friend was alive. There was no part of her that even thought to hesitate to pause and think.   Think, Aoi, think.   She would save her.   For those I love   The rest did not matter; those she loved would always come first. Very few would she grant the title of ‘friend’ to anymore. No, ‘friend’ always meant they died. Sioned had died, she knew she had died. She had spoken at her pyre, voice hoarse, embroiled in grief. Her coin, her consideration. It lay atop, set on fire long after she had left. They had burned her body; she couldn’t be undead. What had happened?   “Magic?” Roy had suggested, but she didn’t know. A steady staccato of tapping, quickened by an anxiety that sat low in her chest.    Magic. She wasn’t a mage; had a mage done this to her? What had killed her to start with? She would need to find out. She needed to find out. She was not letting go, not this time. She would hold on, even if it stole the breath from her lungs over and over.    See the job through. She hoped the others had seen the job through and burned the body. She would find out.   See the job through. She would save her, not alone. She knew she couldn’t do it alone. She would get down on her hands and knees; she would beg; she would offer up every physical thing she had ever owned, if it meant bringing her home.   Dead. Alive. Fear.   Hold on.   Hold on..   Hold on…   This time, there was no more room for errors.  

Paradiso, Canto 34Gustave Doré, 1868     Mist. It was something that would coat the mountains in the mornings close to home. As it danced across rock, until the sun came out, dragging it back to slumber. It always elevated the smells of stone and dew, keeping the village hushed in the morning until day break.  But this was not the same mist she walked through. Death, this was death. Finally, her soul in a way was free. She had said do what they want, she would return. But for now, she walked through mist.  Blue eyes and unmarred features searched the mist. Looking for a hint of ginger, but he never appeared. She had searched for him once before in her dreams, but he never came.  Dark hair, instead of white, sprawled over her shoulders down her back. Gone were the bloodied clothes, replaced with a white gossamer gown that trailed as she danced along the dream. Death. She looked and looked, but she couldn’t find anyone. Yet, her wings spread and she flew. Bare feet dancing along mist and grass, freedom. Was this freedom? To be entirely whole, where nothing hurt. Where the twins did not follow her, hands thrown up to sky, only to be interrupted by a voice.  “Little bird.” A voice called in ancient tongue, a man stepping from the mist. Dressed in white, his face obscured. Dark hair, it flowed and flowed. Tattoos of vines wrapped his wrists, bare feet upon the grass. “You flew too far?” He was a tall man, his arms opening.  Her arms fell; she had a feeling any other time she wouldn’t have recognized him. But here? Now? She did. Bare feet flitted across grass and mist, throwing herself into the arms of her father.  Arms wrapped in arms, and another set joined them. A human woman with green eyes, her head resting on her daughter’s shoulder. Time soared past them as they held one another before it was broken.  Green eyes met blue eyes as Aoi’s father looked to her mother, then both looked to her. Her mother’s hand reached for her face, dressed in the same white, flowing. Vines crept up her ankles, flowing beneath.  “My blue bird.” Her mother spoke, thumb brushing the leaves closest to her face.  She was a girl again.  “So much time has passed, and look at you. All grown. But not grown fully; you are here too soon.”  Her father pulled her in once more.  “Still too soon, my bird. You had your wings clipped once; we only saw you for a moment. Now, they have clipped again. Why do you cry, little bird?” She hadn’t realized she was crying, a perfect hand touching her own face. Where rivulets of tears flooded. They would not cease.  “I- I had forgotten your faces.” And she would again, but the little shrike did not know that. “I missed you. I missed you.” There was no anger, only longing for a home she had forgotten.  “And we have missed you too. For now, walk with us. We found someone along our way who would like to see you as you pass by.”  All the horrible memories, the nightmares, held at bay. In the arms of her parents, she walked. They were always so strong, she remembered. The voices that would sing lullabies when she failed to sleep, the lips that would kiss a hurt better before sending her on her way. The hands that would lift her high above the world, so she could spread her wings. Strong and unflinching.  So the three walked, mist rolling by in the morning. Air clean, they came upon a fire. She watched the embers dancing upward; her ember wasn’t here. Yet, there was another. Upon a log, perched as she remembered, was another Arsa. Forever young.  Green eyes stared at her before a smile broke out, and he was up across the grass, scooping the bird up and twirling her. White hair cloaked them both; a kiss was placed gently upon her forehead. Gentleness she never possessed when she knew him, but he always said she did.  “Hi, Aoi.” The boy looked down at her, hands sliding into hers. He held them, just watching her for a moment.  She knew she continued to cry, her hands gripping his. “Rin.” Kindness to her wickedness, innocence to her guilt. The honed edge to her jagged edges. Each one rocked her one after another, but the guilt here? It did not last long.  His hands came to wipe her face. “Easy, thorn bird. There is no need to cry here; it is okay. Yet you may freely.”  A hand guided her to the fire, and together they sat. Silence, only the sounds of waves that lapped upon the edges of a dream. In death. There was hope, there was love.  Hands held hers, silence. Then her father spoke.  “Are you going to go back, little bird?”  Her mother nodded her head in agreement with her father’s question.  “They want you back, you know?”  All silence from her again.  “I do not know. I told them, do what they wish. I think I gave up long ago. But they told me to rest, if I rest forever. Will we be here? Forever?”  I do not think I want a family.  Words echoing, resounding, crashing down in her mind over and over. Told to an old friend when he declared her family now. She was too many broken parts, trying to pretend to play whole.  She had told the boy of the egg, but he had never asked what happened if the shell cracked. She was the cracked shell, empty and unwhole. Never to find something that filled her once more, the light gone. Flooded away, brought down upon her with such a vigor, she wanted it to burn her away. Each sin, each misgiving, each harsh word she spat at another in the name of building a wall. A sinner, repentant, but never fully repentant.  “Your heart weighs with guilt.” Her mother spoke softly, her hand brushing her daughter’s hair, each loose strand brushed away from her eyes. “Here, my child, you need not hold it.”  Her mother reached for her hands, curled into fists, and unfurled them. “Your hands were never meant to be for violence, but they were used for such. Someone else twisted them that way.”  Fingers looped with fingers, Rin now. His green eyes bright, not the dull, lifeless things she had last seen. “He did that to us, Aoi. He is horrible, but you need to know — you did what you had to survive. Now, it is time to live.”  Survival. How long had she been surviving for? Had she ever truly lived? The fire crackled. Her eyes tore away as one snapped, crackled, and it popped up towards the sky, before twinkling it out. Her ember. She had lived for him, then he had left her. One after another, they all left, and she moved from living to surviving.  His footfalls across the grass, her friend's hands upon her shoulders. His white hair drifted about them both. How she hated her hair when it was like that. A reminder of what she never could be.  “Go live for us, thorn bird. Think you can do that? You have another family, even when you push them. They will follow, just as the waves do. You can push them, but they will pull you towards them. Unrelenting.”  Another soft kiss to her forehead, “Go, Hato. Return to them after you have rested. We will still always be there.” Blue eyes looked up at the green, her expression falling. Pathetic, she always was. So full of love she tucked away. So full of a panic that came out in anger. She blinked, her vision blurring.  “Okay.” An unusual softness, “But please. Let me stay a little longer.” 

Captain_Cynical: [!] The night is marked by flashes of lightning, followed by distant thunder.And yet the sky is without clouds.Vampires, those who once were vampires and those close to them all ventured forth. And yet only returned to the Hospital with a corpse of their own rank.Does justice come for all? Or does it merely pick and choose. May flowers bloom upon rotten soil? A coin was returned today, from a Pyre to a Grave.       Quiet footsteps grew silent, not a walk back home. Not a meander around the pit. Only silence. No silver-fox followed the white-haired half-Arsa as she never returned to them to do so.  “Alive?” ”Dead.”   Desperate words outside the hospital. Aoi did not return home, entombed in dirt in hopes she would return again. A coin returned.    

  A single poster was tacked to the notice board, the hand writing not of that who posted it.            Looking for someone who can help make a new set of leather armor. I have a few requirements of it. Please leave names below.     Spoiler Its real!! Not an event hook!!