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!
The changing of the season meant that the merciless cold of Hiems settled relentlessly upon the city once the sky had darkened. Watching his breath fog in front of his face in the flickering light of a nearby torch, Ber let out a sigh and rubbed some warmth back into his arms as he eyed the shadowy docks that stretched out before them. A few days ago, Woodwick had promised a night patrol, and the lieutenant had delivered - as he usually did when it came to unpleasant tasks. As a result, the soldier now found himself shivering in the cold instead of warm in his bed.
When they had waited in the tavern for Whitby, Woodwick had questioned a nervous man named Jim Nelson, who revealed that he owed a favor - delivering the tin of tea to Whitby - to a friend of his who had died. That friend was named Herschel Dunn, and he and his family had drowned when their fishing boat, The Golden Stag, sank. Given that Dunn’s family often remained on shore while the man himself went out to sea, both Ber and Woodwick suspected some sort of foul play, likely at the hands of the Amber Lotus, the apparent group of criminals who tied murderer Alfric Whitby to the deceased Frederick Long, whose disappearance had caught Woodwick’s attention in the first place.
They were here to investigate the warehouse in which Dunn had stored his supplies. As he turned his attention to the silhouetted buildings, Ber found that he wasn’t quite sure which one that was. And, as the shadows invited his imagination to run wild, he couldn’t help but wonder how long their presence here would go unnoticed.
Warren was at the edge of his own knowledge. It was more likely in these situations that Ber had more experience than he did. Despite being a devoted soldier and experienced fighter with a particular pension for single-minded focus on the battlefield, that was where his strengths were: direct conflict. Hiding in the shadows, sneaking around in the dark, that was not general Warren's game. He had exhausted the extent of his espionage capabilities in tracking Whitby down. Pretending to be someone he wasn't for a short amount of time, mimicking criminals he had seen in order to keep the murderer from recognizing him, that had been simple enough. This was not so simple.
But he looked at it logically, from a tactical stand point, and considered his options. He had spent the previous night at a distance, watching the patrol routes of the guards on duty around the warehouses. That they had guards at all was indicative of the importance of what was in them. Most businesses just made sure the warehouses were locked up tight at night. It wasn't enough to make him worry, though. They could incapacitate the guards quickly and quietly, but then they would need to investigate the warehouse quickly before the missing guards drew attention.
"Alright," Warren said, standing with Ber from across the street and looking on at a row of warehouses. "According to the manifests, the Golden Stag delivered to the second warehouse from the left. There's two guards circling - one loops between the first and second warehouses, and the other between the second and third warehouses. If we can take them both out quietly, we should have enough time to investigate the contents of Dunn's warehouse before any other guards notice something is wrong."
He reached into his jacket pocket and handed Ber a vial of liquid with a faint green color. A second vial was kept in his pocket. He had bought them from an Apothecary in Skia, rather than getting them directly from military storage. "It's a paralysis potion. You take the guard between the first and second buildings, I'll take the one between the second and third. It's best if they don't see our faces. Once you've slipped him the potion, close his eyes and prop him up somewhere he can't be seen. The more well hidden, the better. The potions won't wear off for a couple of hours."
He glanced around the building, watching the shadow of one of the guards meander slowly around a corner. "Once he's incapacitated, meet me by the warehouse door. It's on the left corner, closest to the first warehouse. Do you understand?"
As he listened to Woodwick describe the guard rotations, Ber couldn’t help but think that the lieutenant had evidently put far more preparation into this endeavor than the soldier, who had simply shown up when told to. From their location across the street, he glanced toward the warehouses, peering into the shadows surrounding them in an effort to make out the guards that Woodwick described. He didn’t have long to search, however, for the appearance of faint green potions drew his attention back to the man beside him. Ber took the vial, swirled the liquid lightly, and pocketed the flask where it would be easily accessible. Then the lieutenant delegated roles and arranged a meeting place. A brief “Yes, sir,” in response to the question, and if nothing else followed, Ber would be off.
Feigning nonchalance, he moved as quickly as he could, without compromising subtlety, into the shadow of the first warehouse. With on hand resting on the stone building, Ber paused there and glanced back to see where Woodwick was before focusing on his own task – only to realize that he hadn’t actually stopped to notice where in his circuit the guard was before beginning to move himself. He let out a quiet breath and looked around as if his surroundings would provide him with an answer, but they offered none. Well. He had an equal chance of picking the wrong corner to peek around.
So, naturally, he did.
Ber locked eyes with the startled guard just as the latter was about to turn the corner. A heartbeat passed in which they both froze, but the soldier recovered faster. Fingers curling into a fist, he landed a solid blow to the side of the guard’s head, advancing as the man staggered to the side. Before his opponent could recover, Ber swept his legs out from under him, and shortly after the guard landed with a thud on his back, he clambered onto the other man’s chest and punched him again to stun him. And a third time, for good measure.
With one hand, he covered the guard’s mouth with the palm of his hand while he took out the potion with the other. He uncorked the vial with his mouth then, with some admittedly unpracticed maneuvering, managed to force he potion itself down the reluctant guard’s throat. Ber kept his hand in place until the man beneath him stopped moving.
Half expecting the fight he logically knew wouldn’t come for the next few hours, Ber climbed off of the guard and stood up. That could have gone smoother, but he didn’t think they’d made too much noise – at least no reinforcements came running, as far as he could tell. Now, where to hide the guard? After a glance around, Ber grabbed the man by his shoulders and began dragging the deadweight toward the stack of crates sitting in the shadow of the first warehouse. Then, with another glance around, he made his way toward the door where he was to meet Woodwick.
Warren watched as Ber disappeared into the darkness to follow through with his task. Then he turned to do the same. He watched long enough to ensure the man had gotten around the bottom right corner before crossing over to the warehouses and, much like Ber had done, hiding in the shadows. He wouldn't look around, though. He'd stand just a foot or so from the edge and wait until the guard came back around. When he did, Warren stepped out of the shadows and lunged for him. In the moment that Warren was closing the distance, the guard was also stepping away. It gave the man the singular opportunity to let out a yelp. It wasn't incredibly loud, likely even a little quieter than the guard's natural speaking volume, but it had broken the silence of the night.
That was all he got out before Warren punched the poor guard in the throat. He didn't have time to gasp before the Lieutenant was turning him and wrapping his arms around his neck to lock him into a choke. Yet another thing went wrong, though. The guard had reached up and gotten an arm between his own neck and Warren's arms. Because the choke wasn't locked in, the man was able to struggle even if he could still barely breathe or speak. Warren reached for the paralysis potion, but in the struggle the guard knocked it from his hand and it fell to the ground. The glass shattered.
He hadn't brought an extra, which he realized now was an oversight, but he finally locked the choke into place and within moments, the formally struggling guard was falling unconscious.
The glow of a light heading in his direction caught his eyes, and Warren quickly moved away from the downed man, back into the shadows. "Hey, man, where are you? You good?" A third guard called out as he rounded the corner with a lantern. "Oh, shit, hey," he said, hurrying over to the downed guard. As he crouched over the man, Warren moved from the shadows and hit him over the head. The second guard fell to the ground and Warren jumped on him, knees in the guys back, and rubbed his face against the spilled contents of the paralysis potion. The broken glass cut the man, forcing the liquid into his blood stream. Warren couldn't do much but hold his hand over the guys mouth and wait until the potion kicked in. It would take longer, a couple of minutes, but finally the guy would fall limp.
The first guy would regain consciousness soon, though. Warren took the guys jacket off and ripped both sleeves from it. With one he tied the guys hands, and with the other he gagged him. Then he dragged both men back into the shadows, along the bottom edge of the third warehouse, which butted up to an overgrown fence, and left them there.
He outed the lantern the second guy had brought, then headed around to meet Ber. He probably would have been waiting for at least a few minutes. "Might not have as much time as we'd hoped. Let's make it quick." He said, and pulled out a master-key to unlock the side door, allowing them inside. Before he let the door close, he pulled two more vials from his pocket. He pulled the corks from both, and poured the contents of one into the other, quickly corking that vial again. It began to glow brightly, circling them in around ten feet of light, and Warren pocketed the empty vial and allowed the door to close. "Pocket any paperwork, or any sign that people might have been held here. I haven't seen anyone leave or enter, but you never know." With that, they'd begin their way through the warehouse.
With some faint surprise, Ber realized that he was the first to arrive at the door. He had thought that his own takedown of the soldier would have delayed him somewhat, but instead, he found himself waiting for Woodwick. And waiting.
And waiting.
A keen awareness of the precariousness of their position - out in the open despite the shadows hiding them - stretched the minutes into hours. By the time the lieutenant came around the corner, all business despite the obvious delay, Ber had started seriously debating if he ought to head around the second warehouse himself to investigate what had gone wrong. Dark eyes studied the man quizzically for a moment, but the question within them remained unasked; Woodwick didn’t seem to be in the mood for explaining why they no longer had as much time as before, and really, in this situation, the why didn’t have nearly as much bearing as the what.
Squinting into the darkness, Ber stepped inside the warehouse and lingered just inside the doorway while the lieutenant fiddled with the everglow potion. When a circle of warm light began to beat back the darkness, he glanced back toward the officer, nodded at the instructions, and began to look around.
As far as he could tell, which admittedly wasn’t much beyond the ring of light, the warehouse itself seemed to consist of a single large room containing a couple rows of crates, boxes, and other containers of various sizes. Sometimes smaller boxes rested on top of their larger brethren, and he caught sight of what could have been labels on a handful of crates, tacked on by someone who evidently approached their job with minimal thoroughness. Their entrance through the side door left them staring down one such row, which disappeared into darkness beyond the radius of the potion. A moment of silence revealed no indications that their presence had been noticed - though, of course, that was no guarantee that no one else was there.
“I’ll see what these boxes are over here,” Ber offered after a moment, the circumstances of their exploration prompting him to keep his voice low despite their apparent solitude.
The boxes in question sat piled on top of each other on one side of the row. When he approached, Ber could see no writing or any indication of their contents, but even if one had existed, nothing could have prepared him for what he found within. Carefully, he opened the lid and found a collection of pouches nestled amongst each other. Choosing one at random - the little sack was oddly light and made a very strange, faint sound as he lifted it - he opened it and turned back toward the light to see what it contained. The noise that escaped him was a combination of shock and disgust. He looked over at Woodwick. “Sir, I found teeth.”
Once they'd gotten into the warehouse, Warren knew they wouldn't have to go through every single parcel inside. Which was fortunate, because there were tons of boxes that seemed to be full of random items. It wasn't as if they could carry them all away when they left. Other than parchment with written proof, they would hopefully just find some indication that what was brought in from Dunn's boat was not simply fish and tea. Some kind of proof that any crime, not just kidnapping, had been committed was ideal.
The two separated as much as they could at the edges of the everglow potion. He could have brought the lantern from before in to give to Ber, but he'd been afraid the combination of it and the potion would be too much, and would draw attention to the warehouse in some way. In retrospect, the everglow potion would have swallowed the lantern light, but Warren hadn't been thinking of that at the time. He'd just wanted to get the light out and make it into the warehouse.
Now he did the same as Ber, but moved to the boxes on the opposite side and began to go through them. The first was rolls of fabric, and the second was dried plants or flowers of some kind, which could be used in potion making but that wasn't nearly specific enough. She shuffled through a third box, filled with what appeared to be junk, and moved on to a fourth before Ber called him back over. "Teeth?" Warren asked, walking over to take the bag from Ber. He tucked the Everglow potion vial into his breast pocket - it stuck out enough that the glow was still bright - and poured some of the contents of the bag out into the palm of his hand.
He looked up at Ber for a moment, and then funneled the teeth back into the pouch and tied it up with the strings. Then he handed it back to Ber. "It's not enough. Some witches get them in fair trades. If we try to use it, they'll just say they paid for them or something." A lot of poor families sold the teeth of their children for a little extra money. Baby teeth would fall out of their own accord anyway. Warren couldn't say that he'd ever seen that amount all together, but he was sure Apothecaries - even ones like Ber's friend, Temperance Towers - would have an ample supply. It didn't make them all criminals. "Keep looking."
Warren turned back to his row of boxes, moving from stack to stack. When nothing seemed to be of value, he walked around the row that Ber had been working on, to the row on the other side. In doing so, he stepped on something and froze in place. Crouching down, he pulled the item from under his boot and lifted it closer to the everglow potion. It was an old, wooden pipe. His boot had broken off a portion of the lip, but it was in otherwise decent condition. "That's odd," he said, as he twisted the pipe in his hands. "It's packed." There was tobacco in the bowl, and as Warren lifted it to his nose, he recognized the somewhat burnt smell that came from it having been lit. "Maybe it belonged to Dunn. They could have attacked he and his family here, put them on the boat and sunk it?"
Standing up, he pocketed the pipe. "I'll show it to Nelson. Maybe he'll recognize it." If not, it was just another puzzle piece from an entirely different puzzle. He lifted the potion vial out of his pocket and held it closer to the floor, looking around the area, but saw nothing. "Let's go over here." He nodded his head to the next set of rows, and once more began to look through boxes.
When Woodwick walked over echoing Ber’s confusion, the soldier easily relinquished the pouch of teeth when the lieutenant reached for it. Let him deal with disconcertingly large collections of body parts. Eyebrows climbing and nose wrinkling slightly, he watched, rather disconcerted, as teeth tumbled from the open bag into the palm of Woodwick’s hand, where they lay in the warm glow of the potion. Ber looked first at them, then looked up at Woodwick, meeting the other man’s gaze.
Believe it or not, I do, in fact, know what teeth look like, sir.
A moment passed, then the bag ended up back in Ber’s possession despite Woodwick’s history of handling human remains on these endeavors. Although he sighed internally at both this development and the lieutenant’s words, he couldn’t refute either of them, and he had seen for himself Temperance’s supply of teeth for her potions. “Yes, sir,” Ber said, and as Woodwick returned to his own row of boxes, Ber turned back to check that the other pouches in the box also contained teeth. They did. After returning the pouch to its place and putting the lid back on the box, he kept looking.
As far as he could tell, there was no rhyme or reason to the contents of the boxes, and like the lieutenant, he found very little of interest. Woodwick had just walked by him when Ber found a small box tucked away inside a bigger one. He’d barely opened the lid of the smaller container when the sound of something snapping underfoot had him looking in Woodwick’s direction. Brow furrowing, he distractedly slipped the little box into his pocket and made his way around the end of his row to the lieutenant, focus shifting to the wooden pipe in the lieutenant’s hands.
Ber cast a look around too. “How long ago did Dunn’s boat sink?” He asked, eyes peeled for any sign of a struggle on the floor or the containers around them. “If they caught him and his family here, they might have had time to clean up after themselves.” Which would mean that pipe belonged to someone else entirely – but what would it be doing here? Either way, if Woodwick was going to show it to Nelson, then they’d find out soon enough.
Woodwick examined the floor but didn’t seem to find anything of interest, so Ber followed him around to the next set of rows. He gave a cursory look down his line of containers before casting another glance around the warehouse. Barely visible in the darkness beyond the light of the potion, a bit of metal on the far wall glinted and caught Ber’s attention. Turning, he squinted into the shadows and took a couple steps closer but couldn’t clearly make out what it was. Looking back over to Woodwick, he pointed in the bit of metal’s direction and said, “I think there’s something over there, sir. Maybe another door or something, but I can’t see from here.”
Warren glanced at Ber and thought about it for a moment, nodding agreement. "They've had time. It sunk shortly before we caught Whitby, but this place..." he glanced around, holding the vial of potion upward. "It's full of boxes. The pipe could have been kicked around, went unnoticed." His brows lifted in tandem with his shoulders. "If it's not Dunn's, it could belong to any number of people. Other hostages, workers, even the guards." There was no way of confirming who it belonged to if Nelson couldn't identify it, and he had been working under the assumption that most of the hostages would be children, who likely wouldn't be carrying around pipes. Meaning it would belong to someone who worked there.
Which could be anyone, and Warren didn't have the time to go around Skia and ask everyone and their mother if they recognized a basic wooden pipe.
They moved on to the last two rows of boxes and Warren had already begun sorting through the boxes stacked at the end. He sat one down and opened up the box underneath it, but all that was inside was empty glass vials. Which, like the teeth Ber found, was both telling and yet not compelling enough. Most of the items he'd seen so far could easily have been called storage for any apothecary. Possibly even some group of people who collected the items in surplus to then sell to apothecaries and potion-makers. They were suspicious like this, but easily enough explained away that they didn't point to any specific crime.
Before he could get into the next box, Ber got his attention and pointed toward the darkness. Warren squinted, but saw even less than Ber had. He pulled the vial back out of his pocket and walked with it somewhat out in front of him. As they approached, it was clear that Ber was correct, it was a door. The stacks of boxes ended a few feet or so from the door, leaving it with a fair amount of walking space. Warren took a careful look around as he approached it, and leaned his ear close against it to see if he could hear anything. "I don't think there's anyone in there," he said, though the door did seem like thick metal, so he couldn't be sure.
Still cautious, he reached for the knock and slowly twisted it. It clicked, proving it was unlocked, and Warren looked back to Ber as if to tell him to be prepared for whatever might be inside. Once he knew Ber was ready, Warren placed the glowing vial back into his pocket and slowly pushed the door open.
The air that rushed out of the room behind the door offered up a faintly familiar smell, one both men had encountered upon opening the door to Frederick Long's room. It wasn't as potent as it had been that day, but it was undeniable. Warren squinted his eyes against it, then stepped forward. He lifted the vial out of his pocket and out toward the center of the room, having already stepped on something. Dark eyes glanced downward.
And found...clothes, shoes, blankets, and scattered piles of hay. The items were strewn about randomly, as if they'd just been tossed inside and left there carelessly. But some straws of hay were splattered with the unmistakable color of red. It wasn't a gruesome scene. There were no pools of blood and no rotting corpses. Just the spattering of blood here and there. He took a deep, unwanted breath and returned his gaze to the younger soldier. "These clothes and shoes are small. They belonged to children."