The peace that formerly reigned in Terra Nova has eroded, now little more than a memory. War ravages the continent. Disputes divide kingdoms; ideals divide families. The quest for power consumes absolutely and indiscriminately. None are immune to its allure.
Who will rise and who will fall? Only time—and ambition—will tell.
UPDATES
05.26.2023
2 month character creation hold for all existing members begins 6/5/2023. Ended 8/5/2023.
10.29.2023
Change in how times flows. Was 4 IC seasons, now only 2 IC seasons per 1 OOC year.
5 whole years of Heir Apparent goodness! When I started the site, I knew I was hunkering down for the long haul, but I never could have predicted the numerous twists and turns this roleplay site has seen. Hundreds of plots, characters, and members have come and gone, all leaving marks on the site. I am so very thankful for those who have invested. Because you keep coming back, keep getting on, and keep writing, Heir Apparent has the legacy it does today. Three cheers to us!
They had been at it for two days, the room they had been working in was a potion masters nightmare. Books, vials, knives, failed potions, and dead ingredients were a misconstrued mess. Odina and Lyra were currently reading through the same two texts, Odina had her hand clutched into a ball with a pink colored rag that had once been white. Two cuts across her palm was the reason, they needed her blood they had assumed to find the locations of her siblings...
...nothing had proved useful, one result melted through a wooden table, another had made everything including the table disappear entirely of course it had actually rendered it invisible which Vekka found and angrily kicked when she came to retrieve her in the late night yesterday.
"I'm not seeing anything here Mom," Lyra sighed and pushed herself away from the book looking at her Mother trying her best not to sound defeated, Odina also stopped reading, "Same, I honestly don't know at this point what we are doing wrong or...if there even is a potion that can track or locate," she didnt want to cry but the prospect of findinf her remaing siblings was slowly slipping away. Lyra hung her arm over her Mother's shoulder, resting her head against her Mother's, "We will figure something out...right Kennet?"
The green glass eyes of Lyra's looked at Kennet as if saying, 'please be optimistic yay team yay!'
Last Edit: Jul 18, 2022 9:34:04 GMT -5 by Odina Ellis
Post by Kennet Caern on Jul 21, 2022 20:41:04 GMT -5
Two days was an extensive amount of time for Kennet to devote to any single task, even one as intricate and demanding as the one at hand. The recipe Tara Ellis provided was as convoluted as it was archaic, a mixture of elements and ingredients that toed the line between ingenious and impossible.
“We’ll figure something out.” Kennet planted her hands on her hips, exhaling a long breath as she bent from side to side, stretching the muscles in her back that had tightened from being bent over the workbench for so long.
Her mind was lost somewhere in the mires of the problem before them, working through alterations and substitutions to the recipe she was confident they had already executed to perfection. Twice. As a result, Lyra’s plea was lost on her. She’d answered the question she heard, but altogether overlooked the one she was asked.
“We’re not going to solve anything here though.” There was such a thing at staring too long at the same slab of wood, and—somewhere beneath the salt and blood and thyme and bone meal—they had discovered it. “Not today, at least.”
Despite what she said, Kennet herself was wont to relinquish her calculations. She was still stubbornly calculating, mentally thumbing through notes and recipes in search of analogs that might hold the key to what this recipe lacked.
Post by Odina Ellis on Jul 24, 2022 22:12:59 GMT -5
Lyra gave as best as she could a warm smile, Odina rubbed her forehead as a fresh headache was coming on but she tied her hair back, "I agree, I say we wrap things up today, clean up and rest," patting Lyra on the cheek Odina stood and began picking up, "To bad we couldn't summon up something to track them down," Odina said casually, "Thank you for sticking it our with us Kennet, honestly."
With a rag in hand Lyra began wiping things into a bin, "Yeah I wish we could just summon a literal bloodhound, at this point that's what sounds most plausible albeit laughable."
Post by Kennet Caern on Jul 26, 2022 20:08:06 GMT -5
“Oh, we could do that.”
Kennet was still only half-there, talking from some faraway place at the edge of her mind. She’d already considered the possibility of summoning forth a wraith to do their bidding. In truth, it was likely the only option, but the almost-there quality of the potion nagged at her still. The answer was there, she was certain of it, lingering just beyond her grasp. Mocking her.
She stared down at the mess of a table, eying the ingredients in search of the answer that eluded her. “Without something to guide the creature though…” Her voice trailed off, still lost in the mires of the recipe that had already failed them twice.
Post by Odina Ellis on Jul 26, 2022 20:58:30 GMT -5
"What do you mean we could do that?" Odina spoke with a small glimmer of hope still edging in her voice, she continued to clean however, but her eyes kept bouncing between the mess and Kennet she appeared to be thinking out loud perhaps she was still configuring the potion, "I'm willing to try anything, what would you need to 'lead' a summons? Do they track through scent?"
Post by Kennet Caern on Jul 26, 2022 21:37:46 GMT -5
“Hm?” Kennet heard the question, but it took her a moment to remember what she had said to inspire it. Finally shaking herself from the mires of the problem she had already deemed unsolvable for the day, she finally turned the full weight of her attention to Tara. Of all the methods they might pursue, a summoning had the highest likelihood of success. It was simply…less than ideal.
“Scent would work,” she admitted. “Or sight. Even sound, I suppose. Once you drag it into this world, a summoning will do whatever it is you command. Provided—” Kennet bit back a grimace—“your sacrifice is sufficient.” It was a grotesque practice, as far as she was concerned, letting blood and trading lives for the promise of a wish fulfilled. There was a reason summonings were so powerful. They were bought at a precious price.
“To scour the world in search of someone you lost as a child…” There was a note of genuine apology on her voice now. “I can’t imagine the sacrifice that would take. Without something identifiable, something…precise…” Kennet bent another frown. “You would paying in blood to scour the continent for a needle in a haystack.”
Post by Odina Ellis on Jul 26, 2022 22:51:50 GMT -5
"As long as it isn't a human level sacrifice, I say let's do it," Tara said quickly and mildly confident, "Ew Mom and why should a animals life be any nicer?" Lyra added her face turning a light shade of white, "Oh Ly, seriously you know how to gut and skin a deer," to which Lyra countered with a mumble about maybe she didn't like it but Tara pushed on addressing Kennet fully again, "I can sacrifice what I need to."
Post by Kennet Caern on Jul 27, 2022 19:52:46 GMT -5
Kennet inhaled a long breath, pivoting her intellect from the problem of the potion to one far less nuanced. She admired Tara for her eagerness and her willingness to sacrifice what was needed for the sake of her family. It was a quality Kennet could not help but respect. If she had any reservations whatsoever to the use of summonings—and she had more than a few—it was Tara’s insistence that swayed her.
“It isn’t the nature of the sacrifice that concerns me.” That was not entirely true but, at the very least, it wasn’t the most pressing issue. “It’s the fact that we have nothing at all to guide a creature once it’s summoned. Your blood alone won’t be enough. If either of your siblings have changed their names, and I suspect both have…” Kennet shook her head, not bothering to finish the thought. They would be dragging creature after creature into this world in search of dark-haired, blue-eyed siblings of a relative age who might or might not be together, who might or might not be referred to by their given names, who might or might not ever so much as utter a word of their respective origins.
They could task every witch in Nevermere with summoning a creature to the search every day for the rest of their lives and still never find what they were looking for.
Last Edit: Jul 28, 2022 20:32:48 GMT -5 by Kennet Caern
Post by Odina Ellis on Jul 28, 2022 10:24:24 GMT -5
Tara finally sat down again, her mind wouldn't shut down with all the thoughts of what they could do, what route to take, and yet the wind wouldn't be took out of her sails. She looked at Kennet, "How did you know who I was that day we met?"
Post by Kennet Caern on Jul 28, 2022 20:42:16 GMT -5
Tara moved in her periphery, and Kennet turned, not to sit but to move. She always thought more clearly when her feet were in motion, and though the workshop they occupied was narrow, it was long enough. Marching for the end of the table, thought already devouring the problem of the unguided summoning, Kennet found herself entirely unprepared for the question Tara raised.
She turned, one hand falling to the cluttered portions bench while her lineless brow furrowed. It was not the question itself that struck her but the implication. The possibility. All thought of darkened creatures pulled forcefully into this world evaporated, replaced entirely.
“I have what’s called the Sight.” Once, even those words had felt ridiculous. Now, they felt overwhelmingly important. “I can See glimpses. Memories, mostly.” But not always. “That day in the market, I Saw who you were.” Even now, a flicker of that night, of the blood-soaked sword in Julius’s hand and the little girl with blue eyes hiding behind an overturned bench, flashed uncomfortably before her eyes.
Last Edit: Jul 28, 2022 20:42:28 GMT -5 by Kennet Caern
Post by Odina Ellis on Jul 30, 2022 13:14:23 GMT -5
"Oooh, the sight,"[/b] Tara and Lyra repeated in some mysterious tone, they looked at each other as if they had the same thought, "Witch Doctors from Cambria claim to have the sight, say they can see the past and future, but it is mostly just a bunch of tripping and illusion....so how does yours work?"
"Do I need to boil some tea? Is it mushrooms or do you go into one of those...trances?" Lyra asked rapidly and with a multifaceted plethora of questions.
Tara cleared her throat and Lyra grinned going quiet, "Maybe something in your sight can find us a link?"
Post by Kennet Caern on Jul 30, 2022 18:50:34 GMT -5
An amused smiled drew her from the dark of her distractions and brought her attention to rest once more on Tara and her daughter, with a particularly indulgent grin for Lyra. “It’s nothing like that. Well, I suppose it could be perceived as being a bit trancelike to someone watching. I’m honestly not sure what I look like in the moment.” A nervous laugh pushed against the back of her lips before Kennet swallowed it with another grin.
It was an admittedly brilliant solution. If she could find something, anything, buried in Tara Ellis’s memory to identify her siblings—where they had gone, who had stolen away with them, if they had been given any trinket or letter or something to mark them for who and what they were…
She nodded, green eyes shifting to Tara with an earnest determination. “You’re certain you don’t mind? It’s not always predictable, what I see.” And almost never pleasant, but she kept that confession to herself, confident any horrors she might witness would be a worthy price to pay for the momentous task they were undertaking.
Post by Odina Ellis on Aug 3, 2022 14:46:05 GMT -5
"Oooooh, interesting," Lyra said with a tone somewhere between a whisper to curiosity and perhaps to herself either way she picked up a quill and parchment. She was going to document Kennet's Sight for her by sketching the image of her Mother and Kennet during ... Whatever it was they had to do.
Tara had a solid smile on her face, this was exhilarating beyond belief. She also saw the subtle changes within herself, positive and eager. She wasn't sure how Kennet was feeling but Tara was feeling that she was making a best friend....a bond that one would share with their sister or any sibling.
"I am absolutely sure," Tara confirmed with Kennet, but her selfless eyes and the look on her face when she asked, "Are you certain you want to do this? Whatever you see, it will be perfect and we can keep going until you find something....these...visions don't harm you do they? You know?" Tara pointed to her head.
Post by Kennet Caern on Aug 4, 2022 19:03:20 GMT -5
Kennet smiled, green eyes softening as she shook her head. “No,” she laughed. “It’s perfectly safe.” Or, at least, she suspected it was. There was not a witch alive capable of helping her to navigate what generations had bestowed upon her, but she’d incited more than one vision and suffered more than that by happenchance. Thus far, the nightmares that followed were the only real harm she risked, and even those eventually faded with time. “It’s just a bit intrusive is all.”
Her smile bent in an apologetic arc, but Kennet opened her hand all the same, offering Tara a seat. “It might take me a moment,” she admitted. “Whatever the Sight really is, it’s a fickle thing.” A fickle, frustrating thing. If Tara moved to the seat Kennet offered, Kennet would follow in her wake, slipping into the seat across from her to study the Ellis heir with Malthace’s eyes.
Tara took the seat offered and sat down with her eyes on Kennet, a soft understanding smile on her face, "You know we have come this far and I am here for the long haul, with you," and she was very confident in that statement, "I couldn't be any more grateful that you've come along to help, if that isn't a friend then I don't understand the term...but I love you for all of this," in the background between a sketch of this beautiful moment was a teary eyed Lyra, "So...let's do this," by this Tara wasn't sure, she offered her hand though.