[ Juniper's reflexes kick in most fortuitously, allowing her to balance the pile of food on her plate perfectly. But soon enough a familiar voice reaches her ears as they twitch atop her head, and then someone is pointing at her.
Nearly undoing her hard work, she hastily draws a hand away from beneath her plate to POINT BACK!!! ]
[ Yeah, screw this tray of food!! (Sorry to the lovely folks who made it.) She just barely has enough time to haphazardly set it down on the counter, upon which food definitely spills over, but it's way more important to her to return Declan's hug with just as much enthusiasm.
He's here...! He's really here, in this strange new world, along with her!? It had been so strange to her, "logging off," and having these memories of him surface, but now... ]
It is me! It's great to see you, too, Uncle! I can't believe you really are here, too! I-It's been so long!
It does. [ He frowns, thinking. It feels as if he's been here his whole life, yet he also knows that to be untrue. ] Some strange magic trying to affect our memories, I'd wager.
[ A small chuckle. He knows very well that Juni probably didn't read or retain everything in the "tutorials" they were provided, and having someone here who is both familiar and someone he can help is something of a balm. ]
Gods. Have you gotten stronger? Surely I haven't been away from Waterdeep that long.
[ Declan, it's been a couple of months at least. ]
[ She waves her hands dismissively. In the end, they had all assumed that whatever must have happened must have been important, but—
Something seems to click into place in her bunny brain, then. A recollection of the last time she had seen him at his workshop, and what he had told her about Miss Lucy... ]
Ah! Does that mean something finally came up about Miss Lucy and your mother? Did you go to find them?
[ And he is frankly trying to figure out how to Juni-fy it, but perhaps since it's an adventure of sorts, she'll latch right onto it. Of all the many things Juniper tends to forget, stories of adventures are not among them. ]
Would you like to sit down and enjoy your snack while I catch you up?
[ He would be right in thinking that when it comes to anything that has to do with an adventure, Juniper does try her best to remember them. Sometimes little details and minutiae fall through the cracks, but for Declan she will do her very best to keep everything straight. ]
Oh, right! My snacks!
[ ...Even if it means perhaps forgetting some other things, like the fact that she was about to snack. His suggestion is what reminds her of it, and a flash of recognition has her turning slightly to grab her plate again. She's got a bit of a veggies and hummus situation going on here, as well as a pile of strawberries... Got to eat healthy, after all! ]
Okay. I'm ready for snacks and stories, Uncle Dee! I'm... all ears!
[ Declan is... quite worried about his friends, considering where he left them, but he's glad to have Juniper here. A little support for them both will go a long way. ]
Well then, let us begin at the beginning! As you know, my mother and I would exchange letters often. Even after I sent Lucy to her side, the communications kept coming. Until one day they simply... stopped.
[ She may not realize it right this very second, but she's so very glad that Declan is around, too, as someone she knows that she can rely on in this strange new world... worlds? But even right now, she can already acknowledge that just knowing he's here has made being here feel less overwhelming.
Which is why she listens dutifully, carefully, even while she's fully munching on a baby carrot. What's up, Dec? ]
Oh... Was there a clue in the very last letter, then?
None at all. I got the impression that it was just like any other letter, and more would be coming like usual. None ever did.
[ He frowns a little, absently helping himself to a carrot with a bit of hummus. After a few thoughtful cronches, he continues— ]
I was getting worried. And then that's around the point where I began having strange dreams. I would hear a voice talking about magic or power, I could hear the sound of someone running, and try as I might I couldn't find the source of either sound. It was baffling.
In one such dream, the voice suddenly told me to seek out "the paladin, the warrior of blood, and the monk in the shadows", and when I woke there was a tarokka card in my hand!
[ You know, D&D-flavor tarot cards. Used for fortune telling? Maybe Ori dabbles, I feel like that's her vibe. ]
[ That totally her vibe, and maybe Mom 1 has indeed dabbled, but in Juniper's daughterly opinion: the woman doesn't need any more hobbies!!
Now, Juniper knows that this should be a serious topic of conversation, and wants to treat it with the mindfulness it surely deserves, but... She is also young, and has an incredibly excitable personality that kicks into turbo mode around anything adventure-related. ]
The paladin, the warrior of blood, and the monk in the shadows... Your dreams were telling you to find your party! That's for sure the start of a great adventure, Uncle Dee!
That’s what I thought as well! There was a location written on the back of the tarokka card, and so I thought to set out on my first ever adventure, and let myself do what I’d been afraid to do from the start. I even invited a friend along.
[ His expression falls for a moment, but he shakes his head and dives right into it. How he’d asked Korra, a half-orc mercenary and friend of his back in Waterdeep to be his guide, how he arrived at the inn specified on the card to meet his future adventuring party: Sophia, the sweet paladin with a strong sense of justice and an even bigger sense of sass; Konrad, the taciturn hunter who has many, many tricks up his sleeve; Darravan, the shadowy monk who has a worse understanding of social interactions than even Declan does, and Darravan’s raven familiar, Cawrl, who has saved their bacon on more than one occasion.
How their first night in the inn ended with them awakening on the roadside in a land shrouded in fog, with no way to get back from whence they came. He next spins the tale of the haunted house they chanced upon, guided by the ghostly forms of the children who once dwelled there. The tale is not a happy one, full of death and sorrow and cults and woe. It ends with Korra’s death at the hands of a pack of vengeful spirits, and Sophia using all the holy might in her small body to cleanse the place of its evils. With the party, weary and grieving, leaving the house with Korra’s body in tow and meeting Gideon, a tiefling wizard, on the road. He tells them that their being here was foretold.
From there, Declan recounts their time in Barovia at large. He mentions that Korra’s body vanishes from the church in the first village they stayed at, and how some divine force ensured Declan personally that she was safe and alive and where she was meant to be, for a small mercy. He tells Juni about Strahd’s terrible power, keeping the people of this land captive with fear and dark magic, unable to leave even in death. He tells her about Ireena, the mayor’s daughter who caught Strahd’s eye and how his party helped to escort her from her village to keep her from his advances, eventually taking her in as a fledgling adventurer and full-time traveling companion.
He spins tales of corrupted mayors, Strahd-worshiping cultists (always cultists), fortune-tellers, and encounters with vampires and wolves and the undead. He tells her of the time they freed a winery from the control of a group of mad druids, the time Gideon got possessed by a demon that was terrorizing an orphanage, the abbey full of creatures malformed by corrupted healing magic, the time they got involved in werewolf politics, their hunt for a bird with a 500-foot wingspan, the time they fought an angel of Sophia’s god, the time they fought fearsome swamp hag who used a dragon skull like a magic carpet. And on and on and on.
All of it, even the greatest victories, is tinged with something bittersweet as it becomes more and more apparent that Barovia cannot, and will not, be free and thriving until Strahd is gone. Its people suffer so much, and some of that seems to have worn at Declan, too. He’s stronger than when Juni last saw him by a wide margin, but he’s also got some worldliness about him. A sort of grim determination that sits under his sunny disposition.
It’s probably creeping up on the early morning hours by the time he’s done. ]
—And in the midst of all that, I discovered an old journal that mentions that my mother might be in Barovia. My own mother! In Barovia! Which means Lucy must be with her!
[ Really, Juniper has been the recipient of many a tall adventuring tale many, many times over the course of her upbringing at the Hollow Hearth. Time and time again she greets adventurers both new and seasoned when they return, and time and time again she is regaled with stories of foul enemies, of magic gone wrong, of places cursed down to the very ground it stands on, and the wondrous enemies each and every one of them face. She is a forgetful person, indeed, yet these are the stories she tries to keep in her heart the most, the stories she hopes to carry with her when it is at last her turn to embark on her great adventure on her own.
And so she settles in and listens, and listens well. She is the sort to get easily distracted, but there are only two things she need focus on at the moment: Uncle Declan, and her snacks. As the artificer forges on with his recounting, however, more and more of that focus is shifted onto him... and also, she runs out of snacks partway through. Now and then, he can spot her mouthing his words, as if to memorize the details: Korra, Uncle Declan's friend. Sophia, the paladin. Konrad... and so forth. Barovia. That seems important. Strahd. Whether these names will truly stick with her remains to be seen, but she is trying. For someone like Declan, who has listened to her prattle on about much more trivial things in the past, she must try.
And as she continues to do so, it becomes more and more apparent to her that the last few months have changed her friend so very much. Of course he has become stronger, a fact which is only highlighted all the more by his descriptions of what he's been able to pull off - but she can see it in the weariness in his eyes, the way he carries on with each story, that edge of grounded grimness beneath his usually sunny demeanor, too.
Though, spirits, does she tense up the moment that he mentions a hag, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. Though the fact that he's sitting before her means that they felled the sorceress. Good. Good...
Juniper doesn't even look the least bit tired despite the hour. ]
Ah, that's great news! I mean, not that your mother and Miss Lucy are in Barovia, because it really does not sound like a great place to be, but - that means you must be getting close to reuniting with them!
[ Expressive as ever, she surely has embarked on such a face journey for the last however-long-it's-been, but by now she has settled on something warm, and bright, and most of all proud. ]
You're even stronger than I already thought you were, Uncle Dee.
I certainly hope so. The thing is... the journal that mentions her is over a hundred years old. There were possibly some time travel magicks involved in her arrival, or so I've been told.
[ A sigh, and he goes to reach for another carrot only to realize the tray of snacks has long been emptied. Ah. ]
Well, if anyone can survive in Barovia for a hundred years, it's my mother.
[ And the possibility of time travel magicks!? If Dad 1 were here, he would be yelling at the top of his lungs at the mere prospect of it. Juniper has no real scholarly knowledge of the arcane to supply in this conversation, but she can at least offer a comparison. ]
Or maybe... Maybe time flows differently in Barovia, like it does in the Feywild sometimes...? I guess you'll figure it out eventually, but... You and your adventuring friends will be able to find her, I'm sure!
That's possible, but the words "travel through time" were definitely used.
[ Who knows!! Hopefully he can find his mother and ask her directly. ]
Right now, all signs are pointing us toward a peculiar temple high in the mountains. My mother was commissioned to build the wards for the place, so it won't be easy to get into.
[ Well then nevermind! Timey wimey magicks it is. Then Dad 1 would definitely geeking out right about know if he were here... ]
I bet... If there's anyone who can figure out her wards to get into the place, it'll be you! Hehe... You're her son, after all! And besides, you won't be alone, so everyone can put their heads together. That's the true value of teamwork!
[ said with a decisive nod and a smile. Though with that, it really does hit Juniper... just how much Declan has been through in the last few months. And to think of the last time they saw each other, he had been so remorseful over not going with Miss Lucy, when now he's gone and accomplished so much else too... ]
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clockworksoul) wrote2023-04-30 08:50 pm
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Wait a godsdamned second.
POINTS!!! ]
Juniper?!?
1/2
Nearly undoing her hard work, she hastily draws a hand away from beneath her plate to POINT BACK!!! ]
You!?
[ Why are they pointing!? ]
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Wait a g*dsd*mned second. ]
...Uncle Dee!!
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[ Sorry to this tray of food, but Declan is closing the gap for a rather enthusiastic hug. ]
It's so good to see you, Junebug!
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He's here...! He's really here, in this strange new world, along with her!? It had been so strange to her, "logging off," and having these memories of him surface, but now... ]
It is me! It's great to see you, too, Uncle! I can't believe you really are here, too! I-It's been so long!
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It has!
[ Or has it? When he thinks about when he last saw her, he gets a couple of conflicting instances tumbling around in his head. ]
At least, I think it has. Funny, usually my memory is a bit more reliable.
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At his remark, she chuckles heartily. Her memories feel like a weird soup, too, but— ]
My memory is never reliable! But it definitely feels like it's been a while!
[ —when is it ever not a weird soup up there? She gently sets him back down to his feet, though she's not quite ready to let go of him just yet. ]
Though I guess it does kind of feel like we just saw each other here, too?
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[ A beat. ]
Would you mind setting me down, Junebug?
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[ She lets go of him and steps back! ]
T-To be honest, I don't know if I really understand everything that's going on here... There was a lot to read and take in all at once, and...
[ ... They know how easily distracted and forgetful she can be. ]
But if you're here, then I know we can figure things out! You're a genius after all!
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[ A small chuckle. He knows very well that Juni probably didn't read or retain everything in the "tutorials" they were provided, and having someone here who is both familiar and someone he can help is something of a balm. ]
Gods. Have you gotten stronger? Surely I haven't been away from Waterdeep that long.
[ Declan, it's been a couple of months at least. ]
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Huh? Uncle Dee, it's been a couple of months at least... So of course, I got stronger!
[ ... ]
We were all really worried about you, you know. Dad 1 sent me to check on your shop, but it was all closed up...
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Ah, I'm sorry. I would have written or something but circumstances don't really allow for that.
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[ She waves her hands dismissively. In the end, they had all assumed that whatever must have happened must have been important, but—
Something seems to click into place in her bunny brain, then. A recollection of the last time she had seen him at his workshop, and what he had told her about Miss Lucy... ]
Ah! Does that mean something finally came up about Miss Lucy and your mother? Did you go to find them?
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[ And he is frankly trying to figure out how to Juni-fy it, but perhaps since it's an adventure of sorts, she'll latch right onto it. Of all the many things Juniper tends to forget, stories of adventures are not among them. ]
Would you like to sit down and enjoy your snack while I catch you up?
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Oh, right! My snacks!
[ ...Even if it means perhaps forgetting some other things, like the fact that she was about to snack. His suggestion is what reminds her of it, and a flash of recognition has her turning slightly to grab her plate again. She's got a bit of a veggies and hummus situation going on here, as well as a pile of strawberries... Got to eat healthy, after all! ]
Okay. I'm ready for snacks and stories, Uncle Dee! I'm... all ears!
[ Cue ear twitchy. ]
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[ Declan is... quite worried about his friends, considering where he left them, but he's glad to have Juniper here. A little support for them both will go a long way. ]
Well then, let us begin at the beginning! As you know, my mother and I would exchange letters often. Even after I sent Lucy to her side, the communications kept coming. Until one day they simply... stopped.
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Which is why she listens dutifully, carefully, even while she's fully munching on a baby carrot. What's up, Dec? ]
Oh... Was there a clue in the very last letter, then?
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[ He frowns a little, absently helping himself to a carrot with a bit of hummus. After a few thoughtful cronches, he continues— ]
I was getting worried. And then that's around the point where I began having strange dreams. I would hear a voice talking about magic or power, I could hear the sound of someone running, and try as I might I couldn't find the source of either sound. It was baffling.
In one such dream, the voice suddenly told me to seek out "the paladin, the warrior of blood, and the monk in the shadows", and when I woke there was a tarokka card in my hand!
[ You know, D&D-flavor tarot cards. Used for fortune telling? Maybe Ori dabbles, I feel like that's her vibe. ]
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Now, Juniper knows that this should be a serious topic of conversation, and wants to treat it with the mindfulness it surely deserves, but... She is also young, and has an incredibly excitable personality that kicks into turbo mode around anything adventure-related. ]
The paladin, the warrior of blood, and the monk in the shadows... Your dreams were telling you to find your party! That's for sure the start of a great adventure, Uncle Dee!
[ Too bad she's about to learn about Barovia— ]
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[ His expression falls for a moment, but he shakes his head and dives right into it. How he’d asked Korra, a half-orc mercenary and friend of his back in Waterdeep to be his guide, how he arrived at the inn specified on the card to meet his future adventuring party: Sophia, the sweet paladin with a strong sense of justice and an even bigger sense of sass; Konrad, the taciturn hunter who has many, many tricks up his sleeve; Darravan, the shadowy monk who has a worse understanding of social interactions than even Declan does, and Darravan’s raven familiar, Cawrl, who has saved their bacon on more than one occasion.
How their first night in the inn ended with them awakening on the roadside in a land shrouded in fog, with no way to get back from whence they came. He next spins the tale of the haunted house they chanced upon, guided by the ghostly forms of the children who once dwelled there. The tale is not a happy one, full of death and sorrow and cults and woe. It ends with Korra’s death at the hands of a pack of vengeful spirits, and Sophia using all the holy might in her small body to cleanse the place of its evils. With the party, weary and grieving, leaving the house with Korra’s body in tow and meeting Gideon, a tiefling wizard, on the road. He tells them that their being here was foretold.
From there, Declan recounts their time in Barovia at large. He mentions that Korra’s body vanishes from the church in the first village they stayed at, and how some divine force ensured Declan personally that she was safe and alive and where she was meant to be, for a small mercy. He tells Juni about Strahd’s terrible power, keeping the people of this land captive with fear and dark magic, unable to leave even in death. He tells her about Ireena, the mayor’s daughter who caught Strahd’s eye and how his party helped to escort her from her village to keep her from his advances, eventually taking her in as a fledgling adventurer and full-time traveling companion.
He spins tales of corrupted mayors, Strahd-worshiping cultists (always cultists), fortune-tellers, and encounters with vampires and wolves and the undead. He tells her of the time they freed a winery from the control of a group of mad druids, the time Gideon got possessed by a demon that was terrorizing an orphanage, the abbey full of creatures malformed by corrupted healing magic, the time they got involved in werewolf politics, their hunt for a bird with a 500-foot wingspan, the time they fought an angel of Sophia’s god, the time they fought fearsome swamp hag who used a dragon skull like a magic carpet. And on and on and on.
All of it, even the greatest victories, is tinged with something bittersweet as it becomes more and more apparent that Barovia cannot, and will not, be free and thriving until Strahd is gone. Its people suffer so much, and some of that seems to have worn at Declan, too. He’s stronger than when Juni last saw him by a wide margin, but he’s also got some worldliness about him. A sort of grim determination that sits under his sunny disposition.
It’s probably creeping up on the early morning hours by the time he’s done. ]
—And in the midst of all that, I discovered an old journal that mentions that my mother might be in Barovia. My own mother! In Barovia! Which means Lucy must be with her!
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And so she settles in and listens, and listens well. She is the sort to get easily distracted, but there are only two things she need focus on at the moment: Uncle Declan, and her snacks. As the artificer forges on with his recounting, however, more and more of that focus is shifted onto him... and also, she runs out of snacks partway through. Now and then, he can spot her mouthing his words, as if to memorize the details: Korra, Uncle Declan's friend. Sophia, the paladin. Konrad... and so forth. Barovia. That seems important. Strahd. Whether these names will truly stick with her remains to be seen, but she is trying. For someone like Declan, who has listened to her prattle on about much more trivial things in the past, she must try.
And as she continues to do so, it becomes more and more apparent to her that the last few months have changed her friend so very much. Of course he has become stronger, a fact which is only highlighted all the more by his descriptions of what he's been able to pull off - but she can see it in the weariness in his eyes, the way he carries on with each story, that edge of grounded grimness beneath his usually sunny demeanor, too.
Though, spirits, does she tense up the moment that he mentions a hag, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. Though the fact that he's sitting before her means that they felled the sorceress. Good. Good...
Juniper doesn't even look the least bit tired despite the hour. ]
Ah, that's great news! I mean, not that your mother and Miss Lucy are in Barovia, because it really does not sound like a great place to be, but - that means you must be getting close to reuniting with them!
[ Expressive as ever, she surely has embarked on such a face journey for the last however-long-it's-been, but by now she has settled on something warm, and bright, and most of all proud. ]
You're even stronger than I already thought you were, Uncle Dee.
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[ A sigh, and he goes to reach for another carrot only to realize the tray of snacks has long been emptied. Ah. ]
Well, if anyone can survive in Barovia for a hundred years, it's my mother.
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[ And the possibility of time travel magicks!? If Dad 1 were here, he would be yelling at the top of his lungs at the mere prospect of it. Juniper has no real scholarly knowledge of the arcane to supply in this conversation, but she can at least offer a comparison. ]
Or maybe... Maybe time flows differently in Barovia, like it does in the Feywild sometimes...? I guess you'll figure it out eventually, but... You and your adventuring friends will be able to find her, I'm sure!
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[ Who knows!! Hopefully he can find his mother and ask her directly. ]
Right now, all signs are pointing us toward a peculiar temple high in the mountains. My mother was commissioned to build the wards for the place, so it won't be easy to get into.
no subject
[ Well then nevermind! Timey wimey magicks it is. Then Dad 1 would definitely geeking out right about know if he were here... ]
I bet... If there's anyone who can figure out her wards to get into the place, it'll be you! Hehe... You're her son, after all! And besides, you won't be alone, so everyone can put their heads together. That's the true value of teamwork!
[ said with a decisive nod and a smile. Though with that, it really does hit Juniper... just how much Declan has been through in the last few months. And to think of the last time they saw each other, he had been so remorseful over not going with Miss Lucy, when now he's gone and accomplished so much else too... ]
I'm really proud of you, Uncle Dee.
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