#halflings who has never drunk human blood from the source has a chance of returning to their human form

[sh1-n0bu]

her true form of being a mix of spider and bird reminds me of this absolute baddie called Hysteria the Elegant’s half-awakened form from a seinen manga called Claymore (spreading my Claymore agenda fr fr)

Aight, so basically her species is a subsidiary branch of the Leviathan genum (?), which are beings with inhuman capabilities (Like Vera). It's called Vampirin. There are three ways to become a Vampirin.

The first is being born with it. Men, mortal or immortal, who married a Vampirin woman is more likely to have a Vampirin child. It was proven in Eden (home planet)'s records that statistically, men married into the gene produces Vampirin offspring three times more than vice versa.

The second is willingly drink the blood of a Vampirin. Unlike the usual depictions in media, those wishing to gain status as a Vampirin have to drink the crimson fluid from said vampire. It's usually done by vampire x other species, but most of the time, it's used for lovers to be together eternally. Takes a long time to fully turn someone.

The third is a method frowned upon by everyone outside of Vera. To become a vampire, one must consume the heart of a Vampirin. Doing so will trigger near instant changes to one's physiology and appearance. Legends say those who use this method take over the general appearance of the Vampirin they ate.

Vanessa (Human name) used the third method several centuries ago. Being a mortal from a wasteland, she wasn't even aware of a Vampirin species, and ate the heart and flesh of the corpse she killed with primitive tools. She was found by Vera and was taken to Eden for her protection.

ouhhhhhh pleaseeeee tell me shes just a little bit monstrous, just a little bit uncanny, has limbs that seem a bit too unnaturally long and big plis plIS PLISSSS

[lightspires]

— the story so far… (24-26/8/18)

At the ball inside the castle, the Ruler of Neverwinter danced with Rurik and didn’t seem sick at the time. As Elion just wants to get home, they decide to leave the party early but as they head out, they see Iarno Albrek trying to slip away unnoticed. They follow him into the city and catch up to him, kick his ass some and eventually he admits that yes, Artem Naeris was at the party and after this night, the ruler will be under his control. He promises Bree he never ordered her death but she won’t have it and with the others help, she kills him in the street. Bree stabbing him in the balls and Elion saying “you’re ugly” literally taunting him to death. After this, they manage to convince the guards they just found Iarno like this and they were lucky Sandor was the guard to convince.

After a night of stressful dreams, the friends receive a letter from Bran’s sister Caitriona where she asks them to join her on her journey to her hometown Dunbar. They decide to do this and make sure to head to Herman Rockford’s mansion where they find the missing Asir Kirksdottir and a whole bunch of evidence as to him having solid slaves way before working for the Black Spider. All this is of course handed over to Safiya and she promises to do something about this. They also manage to find the missing boyfriend Frerin, which  results in an engagement and a very happy soldier. After paying a visit to the Burna Eifrahim’s family they realize her older sister had also vanished a couple of years earlier and that both sisters were born on the same day, sometime during the summer months.

Leaving Neverwinter with Caitriona, Eoghan, Aynswyth and Rosemary they head toward Dunbar, about a week from the city. On the way, Eoghan tells the three friends what he hasn’t wanted to tell Caitriona. He says in his desperate attempt to avenge Bran, he discovered more prisoners being brought to Wave echo cave. He freed them, two dwarven twins and a halfling woman. They didn’t have much in common other than a shared birthdate (unclear when) and two of them had also entered into bed with Caitriona’s cousin Gawain of Dunbar, who’s to be instated as heir of Dunbar. Suspicious.

It turns out Bree has many scarves and she kindly lends one to Aynswyth as they pass through Neverwinter. In fact, she has so many scarves it is a wonder no one has noticed before. During their travels, Rurik also noticed that she’s kind of jealous now that Elion seems so close to the gang he got to know in the prison of Wave Echo Cave. She is worried he’ll leave them.

After a rough battle with a rare banshee, they make it to the lairdship of Dunbar, a place much smaller than Neverwinter. They’re brought into the castle the servants entrance and get cleaned up in the guest wing, Bree resting with Raybard on her back, lending a scarf to Rurik to cover up the bloodstains on her clothes and they all braid each other’s hair. But the niceness of being cleaned and the amusement of Rurik realizing Caitriona and Aynswyth are romantically involved, soon goes away when they enter the party and Caitriona’s relationship with her parents gets apparent. Caitriona’s parents seem to have made it close to impossible for their children to cope with the death of their older brother Arcanbald and when Caitriona tries to talk about Bran’s death she is eventually silenced with a slap in the face. Bree overheard her conversation with the Laird and ends up slapping him in the face with her mage hand in anger. Elion and Rurik speak to Gawain of Dunbar, who is drunk and admits he’s slept with people to learn personal things about them, information he then has shared with the Laird who seems to have had a type: dwarves and halflings. This is interesting, seeing as Rosemary earlier said they’d realized humans have started returning (dead or abused) whereas dwarves and halflings have started disappearing more frequently.

A very drunk Caitriona runs off after hearing the announcement her parents had in store for the evening: they have a new son: Desmond of Dunbar. The friends try to sneak around the keep to find information, but get discovered by the kind mrs Fisher who shows them the library but then urges them to head back to their rooms. Well there, they hear about Bran and Caitriona’s childhood and eventually are shown the Hall of portraits, where they see paintings of the Dunbar children, Arcanbald, Brandoc and Caitriona. Here, they suddenly learn that Bran and Caitriona shared the same birthday, the midsummer solstice. This would have been fine, had it not also been the same birthday of Rurik, Bree and Elion as well. very confused, they quickly decide that because something seems up with that specific birthday, they should change theirs. The surprises don’t end there, however, because as Bree and Rurik are asking about their dead friend Bran, Elion suddenly realizes something.

Bran isn’t dead. He’s never seen the man alive before but now that he sees his painting he realizes that’s not true. Only a little more than week ago, when they were all at the ball in Neverwinter, an undead man danced with him. That was Bran. Reeling with this discovery, the friends quickly decide not to tell Caitriona about this yet and they all go to sleep without a word about it to the already very upset Caitriona.

In the dead of night, Elion is awoken and convinced by Caitriona to come with her and kidnapp her baby brother, as she argues she cannot let the child stay in this family or it will mess him up. Elion agrees but wakes Bree and Rurik to be sure they know what’s going on. As Elion makes his way toward the nursery, Bree and Rurik tell a confused Aynswyth about what’s happening and after mild confusion, they realize Caitriona might intend to kill the baby. They all leave the castle without detection and by the time Elion and Caitriona make it to the forest, the others catch up. It is a tearful Caitriona that argues why she should kill the child, that her family will ruin him and eventually Elion and Rurik manage to convince her not to kill him, Rurik saying she once took in a child who wasn’t hers by blood and she loved him more than she ever thought possible. Someone else can take this child and do that for him.

In the dark of dawn, they all hurry away from the lairdship, leaving Raybard the fox behind in the forest. During their travels back toward Phandalin, they almost get caught by a group of soldiers but Bree manages to convince them the baby is hers. Elion takes Caitriona and the baby on a bonding excursion through Neverwinter, where they buy a horse and a cart with supplies and rejoin the others outside the city walls. Elion of course bought pastries for everyone. The baby is a sweet little boy who learns to walk as they finally reach Phandalin, after more than two weeks on the road. In Phandalin, Sildar Hallwinter is happy to see them all and takes them in without hesitation. but he’s worried about the baby and sets up guards around Phandalin in case someone comes to look for him. He can’t stay there.

After a couple of days of delivering messages to the people saved from Wave Echo Cave and seeing family, having dinners and enjoying some well earned rest. the Tresendar opens back up and the three friends decide to enter into it, to see what OST-ia has to say this time. She seems more like a person now than last time and offers them all some well earned compensation for the work they’ve done for her. By way of connections, she offers Rurik a chance to discover a new god; Lathander, god of dawn. Elion learns that it is time now for him to become what he was born to be, whatever that means and he’s made into a Paladin of light. Bree and OST-ia also make a pact, where OST-ia becomes a new source of power for Bree. Bree is made into a warlock, with OST-ia as her familiar, ready to set out on the road with them, should they want her to.

Before Bree had her conversation with OST-ia, however, she saw Bran. Not a memory of him but a version of him where his skin was slightly blue in color and his hair was wiping in a slow motion wind, where one of his dark eyes was cloudy as if damaged and dark veins reached up that side of his face. When asking OST-ia about this, she said she had nothing to do with this image and that Bran must have managed to do that herself. She promised she would look into how that could have happened.

But what is now to happen with the Laird’s cub Desmond? And why does the elven Lightspire symbol that Elion has on his chest also glow on the walls of OST-ia’s memory core? Will OST-ia discover how Bran could communicate with Bree and what is the significance of people born on the midsummer solstice?