Summary of FTaWSotR/New Blood
This is an interim arc with an influx of new members and an undercurrent of hard feelings, betrayals, and fighting between members as well as a peek at the conflict of w-dueck's past life.
New Blood
A Storm is Brewing (Ackrovan)
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Master Ackrovan lands on Calamity Refuge Isle. Very cautiously, he tries to stake out his surroundings. While he's spying, though, Nioca discovers him. Ackrovan defends himself hurting Nioca and limping off soon afterwords.
A Night at an Inn (w-dueck)
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In a flashback, w-dueck stays a night at an inn in his youth. He's on the run from his father, the Duke, but some guards have caught up with him. w-dueck prepares to fight.
Silver and Orange (Nioca)
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An exhausted Nioca lets Syla go find the intruder with Aryll. He turns in for a fitful sleep where he dreams of the events that led to Aryll becoming his protective shade.
Silver Shovel (w-dueck)
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Still in flashback, w-dueck rides into Corel and gets a room at an inn. He hears someone outside his window and goes to investigate.
Selfish Retreat (Jewels)
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Jewels decides she doesn't want to help Syla catch the intruder. Instead she turns in for the night haunted by nightmares of the previous day.
Defeated (Ackrovan)
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Syla and Aryll take down Master Ackrovan rather easily in his weakened condition, but not before Syla gets shot in the arm by a bolt.
Losing Track of Time (Nalyd)
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Nalyd keeps working on his perfect human.
Twenty-Twenty (Jewels)
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Kaylas tries to come to terms with his own feelings about what he had just learned from Jewels, and how much he didn't know about her. Prince Darius comes to visit Kaylas with some more oil. Their conversation causes Kaylas to realize more of what was going on. Kaylas tells Darius that Jewels is gone for training, then leaves intent on finding her.
Distanced (Nioca)
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Nioca wakes up to a 'normal' day. w-dueck has been busy creating a new forum and the Chat Lounge. Nioca gets into a fight with w-dueck over trying to keep Jewels in the dark about why the Refuge members were in danger. Nioca leaves for Tesara Post to sell his scavenged items from the war and buy some shaping equipment for an experiment he wants to perform involving the Blades Nexus. After his shopping, he is ambushed by another group of assassins. He barely escapes with his life and collapses on the shores of Refuge Isle with a poisoned stab wound working to kill him.
Revelations and a Dragon (Jewels)
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w-dueck gives Jewels access to the most restricted areas of the Refuge though she argues she doesn't know what to do there. When Nioca and w-dueck start to fight, she runs away from them, the sound of Nioca's harsh voice driving her fear. She ends up in the Geneforge forum with Nalyd, who being a shaper, is aware that she is now pregnant and wants an explanation. Jewels doesn't exactly give him one and tries to distract him with a project of making her a pet dragon. After hours of designing the life form, they decide to go do some research outside the Refuge. Next to the Google transports, Jewels stops Kaylas from finishing off Nioca and has him taken to Nalyd's lab to be cured. They leave Nalyd to his work and Kaylas tells Jewels he knows about the trade for oil.
More Than Lurking (Azuma)
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Azuma, mod of the Spam forum, comes out of lurking to fix a camera. He sneaks in hoping to be able to fix it without being noticed.
Iffy Returns (Iffy)
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After being away for a while, Iffy returns to Calamity Refuge intent on finding w-dueck to talk to him.
The Die, Cast (w-dueck)
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Ackrovan's been sitting in the dungeons when w-dueck comes to get him for an interrogation. Ackrovan isn't too forthcoming with information so w-dueck slaps a restraining bracelet on his wrist preventing him from being hostile unless attacked first. Later w-dueck screws up his courage to go talk to Jewels and out of the blue proposes to her.
Noting Changes (Iffy)
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Iffy looks around the Refuge at everything that's changed.
Uneasy Rest (Ackrovan)
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Ackrovan wanders through the Refuge heading for his room. He finds his equipment there and settles down for some much needed rest.
A Different Kind of Spammer (Azuma)
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Azuma makes it into the Spam forum and fixes the camera giving it an upgrade in the process. On his way out, though, he falls into a plot hole.
Marriageous Interruptus (Nioca)
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Nalyd manages to purge the poison from Nioca's system, but he still struggles with the symptoms. He stumbles outside after Nalyd just in time to hear w-dueck's proposal. An argument breaks out between w-dueck and Kaylas as Jewels seems to be in shock, but Nioca discovers she's been shot with a dart suspected to be poisoned with the same kind of poison Nalyd had just purged from him. They carry Jewels into Nalyd's lab again.
Purging Another Poison (Nalyd)
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Nalyd works on an antidote for the poison for Jewels. He ends up with a living blob of goo that he shoves into a new wound he inflicts, just before Kaylas tackles him.
Joining the Fray (BloodMoon)
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Pestilence happens by Iffy on his way to the Spam forum. He finds Azuma in the plot hole, helps him out, then seals the hole to prevent another accident. Azuma disappears from his sight.
Nice Try (Iffy)
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Iffy traps Azuma in a forcecage when he tries to retreat.
lulwut? (Azuma)
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Azuma taunts Iffy from within the forcecage. Iffy's ready to attack him straight on and dispels the barrier just to have Azuma disappear again.
Drama Queen (Iffy)
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Iffy laughs at Azuma's departure from his faked outburst, then goes to find w-dueck.
Bad Blood
Losing Heart (Jewels)
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Jewels regains consciousness in pain and shoos everyone out of the room except Nalyd. Thinking the poison is going to cause her to abort, she asks Nalyd to accelerate it's growth but Nalyd tells her she miscarried anyway. Nalyd leaves the refuge with the stillborn child. Jewels becomes dispassionate except in anger, tells w-dueck off for not making the Refuge safe enough, and leads Kaylas to her Admin Tower suite on business.
Stealing Away (Nalyd)
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Nalyd takes Jewels' child to The Roost where he used to have a lab. There he creates a living creature to power the place.
Trying to Catch Up (Iffy)
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Iffy tells w-dueck about his run-in with Azuma and wonders about the strange goings on.
For Want of a Beating Heart (Nalyd)
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Nalyd attempts to revive the stillborn that hadn't really been dead when Nalyd had snatched it from Jewels. With his own essence he manages to get the heart to beat again.
Spam Plane (Azuma)
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Azuma relaxes in his home plane for a while before noticing that his newly installed camera had already been knocked out of place and heading back.
Reconstruction (Nalyd)
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Nalyd repairs some of the damage he did to the baby as Jewels was giving birth.
Itching for Payback (Ackrovan)
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Ackrovan entices Nioca to attack him but Nioca doesn't take the bait. Then Ackrovan leaves for Tesara Post.
Death of the Day (Nioca)
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The Stranger arrives on Nioca's doorstep forcing him to have him as a guest, telling Syla and w-dueck that Nioca is Emperor Galton. Afterwords, w-dueck gets drunk over Jewels' apparent rejection and passes out, Nioca works on the BladesNexus so that he can use his Ermarian powers at the Refuge, and Syla is bit by a noob while searching for information on the Spam board. She will soon transform into a noob herself and Nioca is too late for the treatment.
Burning Down the House (Jewels)
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Jewels shows Kaylas into her suite which is described in detail. She cleans herself up before really realizing that she's not normal. Kaylas takes her to the best doctors on the fire plane to check her out. They report that the 'living antidote' that Nalyd gave her has turned into a parasite that is suppressing Jewels' dryad DNA and nature. They don't know how to cure it. Jewels then makes some orders for a portal nexus to be built for her and for Crusader's Protectorate to be brought up.
A New Dawn (Part I) (collaborative post by w-dueck, Nioca, and Jewels)
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Nioca returns to the citadel dejectedly from the task that lie ahead of putting Syla out of her misery before she can infect anyone else. The Stranger seems to taunt Nioca before he heads to bed. He didn't sleep long before an enraged and inflamed Jewels stands over his bed with Crusader's Protectorate intent on vengeance. They battle until Nioca is able to cast a mind control spell on Jewels. He fills her mind with the images of all the atrocities he attributes to the demons before having her turn the sword on herself. Will intervenes just in time to stop Nioca's attack, but Jewels won't listen to reason and continues to attack Nioca. She runs out of energy, though, and teleports back to the fire plane seething about her failure to commit justice. She is welcomed by Kaylas and Vergil who convince her that she needs to get help from Nalyd to get back to normal. Unable to go back to sleep, w-dueck makes some upgrades on the refuge and it's simplebots before Vergil comes to talk to him. He explains what's happened to Jewels and then leaves with w-dueck to find Nalyd.
A New Dawn (Part II) (collaborative post by w-dueck, Nioca, and Jewels)
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The stranger heals Syla from the noob bite expecting Nioca to cooperate with him better in the future. w-dueck and Vergil get back from searching for Nalyd empty handed and w-dueck asks Nioca if he can help. Nioca points him in the stranger's direction. To entice the stranger to help, w-dueck offers him what he seems most interested in. Information about his past. The stranger agrees to help and performs a ritual on Jewels expelling the living antidote from her body. When Jewels first comes to, she starts yelling at Vergil for the insults he threw at her in the fire plane. She throws a harmless fireball at him in frustration. Nioca, thinking the ritual hasn't worked, takes action to kill Jewels before she can harm anyone else. Even though Jewels' fear comes back full force, Nioca does not stop his attack. He would have killed her, had Syla not stopped him. Jewels promises to prove herself to Nioca and he promises to finish her off when she fails.
For Good Measure (Jewels)
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Jewels has her emotions back and is enjoying the time with her friends. But her body is tired and weak, Vergil, Kaylas and w-dueck insist she get some sleep. While w-dueck escorts her to her room, he poses his question again. In her fear of turning on him, Jewels skirts answering the question by trying to convince him that he doesn't really want to. w-dueck insists he does, but she still doesn't answer him. When she's finally in her room alone, Jewels mourns over the loss of her baby and screams against the images Nioca forced on her in their battle. She teleports to the fire plane before w-dueck blasts down the door to try and help her.
Avoidance Failure (Azuma)
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Azuma tries to get to the Spam forum to re-fix the camera but w-dueck is waiting for him and takes him aside into the chat room to ask him to stick around and help out. After arguing with his sword telepathically, Azuma agrees to be more of a presence. Before fixing the camera, Azuma teleports home for some alone time.
Good Help is so Hard to Find (Nalyd)
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Nalyd realizes that he'll need some equipment from his lab at the Refuge so he makes some creations to go and fetch them.
Spy Me a River (Iffy)
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Iffy returns to the Roost for old times sake and sees Nalyd with the baby. He returns to the Refuge with the news.
Overload (Nioca)
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Nioca gathers up what is left of Nalyd's antidote for Jewels. It seems to still be alive. He sends off a bit of it to be tested by a friend at Tesara Post. He continues working on his project while Syla tells him she's going to leave, not being able to stay knowing that he almost killed Jewels and still wants to. Nioca heads to the Geneforge forum to complete his tinkering with the GeneNexus and BladesNexus and runs into Pestilence. He offers to help Nioca who abuses the magics enough to blow a hole in the Admin Tower from the energy drain. Nioca manages to create a large alien device and asks Pestilence to help him take it to his Citadel and offers him a room there to stay.