Chatterbox: KYNGDOM™ RP Board

The dragon was perched atop a cliff, watching the very last ray of sunlight wink away below the earth. A vibrant dome of indigo disintigrated into blackness as the land was plunged into dark and the stars pushed their way through the sky. A cold wind brushed across the forest canopy below, sending flurries of snow twinkling over a fading white mist. Whisps of breath curled from the dragon's nostrils and drifted towards the sky, where they disappeared in the inky nothingness.

At last, the night had awoken.

The dragon tucked her legs beneath her and let her wings droop down onto the rocks beside her. She turned for a moment and focused her gaze upon the clearing in the distance, where she had momentarily left Whist and Enyo and the Powers and the wintry beast.

Ecio had returned earlier with news from the flea market, and before, Enyo had borne details of the same event. Jaaws knew the market had ended by now, but if a drum had been sighted there, it was most certainly worth inspecting.

Jaaws closed her eyes and retreated from her scales, drawing away from the forest, from the snow, from the cold, from reality. Her consciousness drifted into darkness, where there were little windows here and there, bits of influence and evil she had left in certain beings throughout Kyngdom. Some of them were nothing but scabs, remnants of hypnosis that were blocked off from another end: the consciousnesses of Icy, Little Crow, and Eliyana Fur. Others were small holes, tiny openings that had been clumsily sealed and could be reopened with little effort: the mind of Hazel Coryli. The rest of the windows pulsed with energy--connections that were thriving. One led to Catastrophe.

Jaaws blinked and suddenly she was in a room by a fire with a book in her hands, youthful hands which clutched feverishly at yellowed parchment as shadows stood guard by the doors, shadows that averted their heads from the letters on the pages, pages which held whispers of power...

Smoke rose and filled the ceiling of the vast chamber, the chamber which Jaaws suddenly recognized, the place she had not seen in centuries. Catastrophe was within his old castle.

Jaaws, now a shadow herself, crept out of Catastrophe's consciousness and, as she had done in the caves at FAFA, became a smoky red-eyed figure that hovered near the fire.

"Catastrophe."

The boy king looked up from the tome with a jolt and his piercing eyes fell upon Jaaws's form. He was prepared to fight; the Sword of Ravenmore leaned against his chair, but when he saw Jaaws his hand moved away from his weapon.

"Jaaws. It's been a while."

"Yes. I thought you would still be hard at work trying to locate the Shield, so I didn't want to bother you."

"I am," Catastrophe replied, setting the enormous book down on a table. Jaaws sent a tiny breeze whirling towards it, but Catastrophe placed a finger upon its open surface before Jaaws could turn his page.

"Are you having any progress?" Jaaws wanted to know. The fire crackled behind her subtle leer.

"Yes." But Catastrophe offered nothing more.

"Have you forgotten about the Powers?"

"Last time we spoke you were planning to use our new Brazen Goo on the other active Powers. I left them up to you. I have not forgotten them. It seemed to me that you did."

"Caelani, Ecio, and Ayearth are now under my influence." Jaaws was careful not to mention Whist or Enyo's hand in any of this. "I am now on the trail of Sylvia's drum. There have been rumors of her drum at the flea market, which recently ended. Are there any of your spies in that area who have brought you information?"

Jaaws knew Catastrophe had eyes everywhere. If the drum had really been at an event as important as the flea market, it was likely Catastrophe had already laid hands on it.

Catastrophe sighed. "Yes, I've been informed of the flea market. I chose not to engage there, but last I heard the drum was stolen from it. Other than that I have heard nothing, but I'll send a notice to Jokull. Perhaps my soldiers there will know something."

Jaaws weighed her options. Jokull was on the way to Mer anyway. "I'll go to them myself. If they don't know anything then I'll proceed to Mer. I'll tell you what I find."

Catastrophe nodded and Jaaws retreated back to her own body.

She stretched and noticed that the moon had risen over the snow-capped forest. It cast a silvery light upon the woods, and when Jaaws turned to look back down at the clearing, she noticed it was covered in a ghostly mist.

Jaaws alighted and sailed down to where the others were waiting, prepared to present them with the change of plan.

-------

Night, I was thinking that Jaaws probably knows about Demise because Jaaws worked so closely with Catastrophe during his reign. But I didn't put anything about her in this because I don't know her backstory well enough.

I was thinking--and this is just me throwing my thoughts into a thread, so I'm not trying to force anything--that all the SAPs/Powers could stop at Jokull and see the drum. If Catastrophe hears about how realistic it is from Jaaws, then he might come back to Jokull and decide to orchestrate the construction of an exact replica of it so as to create a scheme in which he [covertly] makes it known and surrounds it in circumstances that make it seem real--potentially with the help of Jaaws, who could get Whist to create a mist creature that resembles Sylvia/her powers. (So basically, the next big event, like a ball/flea market/maybe a sports event :P) It would serve as a trap to get the Resistance or FAFA or somebody out in the open. The chaos would be a good time for some big plot advancement, like an attack by Catastrophe's army on an important place or something similar. And during that, Jaaws could find Sylvia and 'adopt' her foal (which was a plot idea we talked about a while ago), and Sylvia could free the Powers from the Brazen Goo and they could start working against Catastrophe/Jaaws again.