Forum Games

“I’m leaving” you say and dodge around the actors and head backstage. You navigate the back ways and come out on the other side of the theater. As you are wandering down the street a flash of blue catches your eye.

Backtracking, you can see a blue lantern hanging above an unimpressive door. You’re heart lifts as you dash towards it, knocking quickly.

A bland looking guardian opens it and when you show him the tattoo, invites you inside. He serves you tea and seats you at a table just in time for another surge to overtake you.

Darkness takes over your vision and the pain builds up higher than ever before, crescendo-ing into agony. You come back to yourself, shaking and sweating. You're partway sprawled on the table.

"You really cut that close," Enzul murmurs. He's holding the bracer delicately in his claws. "It's rather interesting that you would be so compatible with a second age artifact. This isn't draconic magic, you know.

“No dragon should be compatible with this type of magic at all. The fact that you are..well, that suggests some interesting research must be on-going in those high-security labs. Though, by whom I couldn't possibly begin to guess."

Finally, he looks over at you, "This will be sufficient payment for my services." Enzul tucks the bracer away, and heads towards the back room. "Take as much time as you need to finish your tea."



Two weeks later you’re back home. Life has pretty much returned to normal except that you have one more story to tell. You hear your name called by a familiar voice.

You turn to see Andraste waving at you. “There you are! We’ve been looking all over for you haven’t we, Cat?” Andraste nudges a grumpy looking Cotriona who’s glaring at you silently. Guess she's not happy with the way you ditched her.

“Anyway,” Andraste continues, “We wanted to give you your cut of the profits from the mess back in the Emporium.” She holds out a burlap cloth and doesn’t wait for you to reach out, instead shoving it at you.

The metal of bracer digs deep into your skin, the now-familiar dizziness washing over you.

“Don’t be shy, you deserve it.” Andraste says pleasantly.

@FawnStars7

You tell him you're dying. As you explain what you know about the artifact, you can feel it growing along your arm. You don't know how much time you have left, but all you want to do is get the artifact off of you. You scratch nervously at the tattoo on your arm.

Tali looks at you with pitying eyes. "Any idea how to get it off?" he asks, all honest. You shake your head, and you feel tears start to form in your eyes.

He puts a reassuring hand on your shoulder. "Hey, don't worry. We'll figure this thing out, I promise." You look up at him, and the only thing you can see on his face is an earnestness you haven't seen in a long time. "Now, is there anybody who would have a clue?"

In a halting voice, you tell him what you know about Enzul. He nods along. "I can find him. Come on, let's go get that artifact off you," he says with a kind smile.

As he leads you out of the sewer and back into the bazaar, you feel the smallest spark of hope for the first time since this cursed artifact turned into a tattoo. Tali goes on a winding path through the bazaar, pausing to sniff the air occasionally. You have no idea what he's doing, but he radiates a confidence in his search.

Eventually, Tali stops in an alleyway in the residential district. He knocks on an unassuming door with a blue lantern hanging over it, and a massive guardian in a hood answers the door. "Enzul, I take it?" Tali asks.

"Now, why's a Bureau dog askin'?" the guardian said in a gravelly voice. He towers over you and Tali. "And how'd you find me?"

Tali hesitates. "This dragon here needs your help. I'll... I'll do whatever it takes to help them out." He nervously gulps, but he remains steadfast. "I'm a good tracker."

Enzul snorts. You scratch at your arm as you feel a surge of magic beginning, and the guardian turns towards you, his eyes pinning you in place. He looks intrigued. "Well, why don't you both come on in and we can work out a fee for my help."

He leads you two inside and towards a table. "Now, I presume you want that artifact out of you before you end up dead?"

You nod vigorously and explain how you came about it as he examines your arm. Enzul snorts at hearing Cotriona and Andraste were involved. "Of course they were." His claw traces its way up your arm, following the longest tendril that had just reached your chest. Another claw touches where the artifact entered. He presses down hard on both places and you feel his magic abruptly crescendo. It feels like his claws are driving down deep enough to hit bone, and then you feel the grating rasp of metal cutting under your skin. It’s agony worse than even the surges and it’s hard to even stay conscious.

When the pain suddenly dies down, you’re sweating and shaking, but the bracer is laying innocuously in the middle of the table.

“These were very popular in the second age,” Enzul says, picking it up. “It’s keyed to the creator's signature but not very well. Anyone that even had a passing similarity could also use it, so the magic users from that time started building in... failsafes, we’ll say. If you didn’t know how to use it, the magic in it would kill you."

You hear Tali gulp. "That's... more than a little terrifying," he says. "And dark. There's a reason the Bureau wanted it back."

"Indeed. Now, my fee." Enzul hums as he considers it. "I'll take a year of service from you, dog."

"Me?" Tali exclaims. "But–" He glances over to you. With a sigh, he gathers up his remaining courage. "Very well. A service for a service. Provided that my friend here is free to leave."

"Of course, of course," Enzul says, waving you away. "I believe your friend here has learned their lesson about the dangers of the Shifting Emporium. Now, let's put you to work, dog." Enzul ducks out of the room and deeper into the house.

Tali exhales the breath he'd been holding. "Are you going to be all right on your own?" he asks you. You nod and ask the same thing. He gives you a weak smile. "Don't worry about me. Just don't go picking up anymore dark artifacts, you hear me?"

You don't tell him you're dying. That's personal business, nothing he needs to know. You sigh, resigning yourself to Tali's stares.

The two of you climb out, with you leading the way. The rope miraculously holds, and you feel a sense of relief as you clamber up the ladder towards the surface. You can finally get out of the dank dark sewers and go find–

You emerge and are immediately confronted by a rather angry-looking imperial, bright pink skeleton markings stark against her blue scales. Dark armor covers her, and you see a glinting sword on her back. She smiles, a slow, languid smile that gives you enough time to realize just how much trouble you're in.

"So you're the one who stole this artifact," she says. "I'm Commander Mirshann, head of the Reclamation Bureau. You know, I absolutely loved the chase you and your compatriots led me on." The heavy notes of sarcasm send your stomach plummeting. You glance down to see if you could fall back down, but Tali is right behind you, eyes wide as he hears his boss.

You're hauled out of the sewer grate, chains immediately binding your wings down as Reclamation Bureau agents start hauling you to their field office. Behind you, you can see Tali climbing up and giving a nervous salute to the imposing imperial.

You're thrown unceremoniously into a holding cell. A few agents bustle around you, examining your arm and the tattoo. You catch phrases like "difficult removal", "flood with magic", and "likelihood of death", and you scratch nervously at your arm as you feel magic building up.

You hear Commander Mirshann berating Tali in her personal office nearby, and he slinks out, giving you a guilty look as he passes. "Sorry," he says quietly after making sure no one could overhear.

A pair of scientists approach you with a device that whirrs ominously. "Hopefully this will remove the artifact," one says to the other as they clamp the device onto your arm. "Thankfully we had the time to finish it with the Puppy's misadventure in those sewers."

You swallow nervously. The devices starts to whirr louder, lights blinking on and off and sparks flying. You feel a prickle build up in your arm, growing stronger and more painful as it crawls towards your heart. A warning light goes off. The two scientists look at each other before diving behind a desk.

The device is blaring a horn, and–

Everything goes white.

@daineger @Maithax @Lundlaeva @Lonefox

It's been hours. Everything is dark, darker than any place you've ever been. You try to cast a small light with your magic, but every spark gets swallowed up by the dark.

You're scared. Your arm is starting to prickle again. You walk a little faster, scanning the walls and ceiling for any openings.

You jump, startled, as you catch something moving in the water out the corner of your eye.

You lean back against the wall, as far as you can get from the water, while you try to stop your heart from pounding.

You gulp, a sound that's drowned out by the water that is definitely surging up and over the edge and oh gods you're running now.

You bolt down the tunnel, trying to find something, anything, but mostly just trying to get *away*. The tattoo on your arm starts to burn bright with magic, lighting your way for all that your arm feels like its on fire.

You turn the corner and–

Dead end.

The burning flares up, racing across your chest as it heats up to unbearable pain.

You turn, just in time to see a monsterous creature looming up over you, its mouth gaping wide open with so many teeth.

The burning reaches your cheeks, then your eyes. Everything burns white.

Then darkness.

@jbapple @Disillusionist

You take the path on the right, for lack of any better options. It feels like hours as you plod along in the dark, unchanging sewers.

You nearly miss it, and you trip and fall as your brain catches up with your eyes.

"Exit", written on a set of levers.

Searching the area, you can see the outline of a door in the wall. You yank on the first lever and hear the groaning of ancient, rusted gears. A loud *chunk* comes from behind the stone door, but it doesn't open.

Feeling a spark of hope for the first time in a while, you pull the second lever.

The floor falls from beneath you. You just barely manage to grab onto the edge. Below you, dark sewer water churns. You haul yourself back over the edge.

The door still isn't open.

With a grunt of annoyance, you yank down the third lever and are rewarded with an ear-splitting screech as the wall slides open, revealing a ladder lit with glowing emergency lights.

You climb up. It's much taller than you remember falling down. The ladder creaks and groans, making some rather unnerving popping noises.

It holds, if only barely, and you eventually reach the surface. You collapse onto the sweet desert ground, vowing never to go in the dark underground again.

Your vision blurs and you feel yourself slipping into unconsciousness. You swear you see a blue pearlcatcher that looks like Cat, but the sweet oblivion of rest takes over.

You wake up sometime later in a pile of what smells like dirty clothes in a back alley. You look down and note with surprise that, while your arm is sore, the tattoo is gone. Your arm is covered in faint twining scars, but there's no cursed artifact embedded in it anymore.

There's no trace of anyone else.

@Pandacow @counterfeat

You take a leap of faith across the churning pool of water, your eagerness to escape overtaking your common sense. You believe, for a moment, that you're going to make it.

You belly flop painfully into the water. It takes a moment of flailing to get back to the surface, but you see you're not too far off from the edge. You start paddling towards the edge, but a glint of gold under the water catches your eye.

You look back. The Bureau agent is still struggling with the gate. You've got some time, might as well make this whole cursed trip to the sewers worth it.

Taking a deep breath, you dive below the surface, aiming for the golden glint. It's shallower than you expected, and you manage to grab the object. It feels stuck beneath rock and water, but a solid yank pulls it out. You swim back to the surface, gasping for breath as you emerge.

You look at the golden object in your hands. It's a statue of an unidentifiable dragon, made of finely wrought gold. There are small diamonds gleaming in its eyes, and its claws are made from polished obsidian. You whistle to yourself, recognizing a very old, very valuable object.

Best of all, this one didn't have any magic in it as far as you could tell.

You stuff the object in your bag. The prickling in your arm has subsided for the moment as you climb out of the water and shake off. You climb up the ladder and breathe a sigh of relief when you can see the sky.

A face appears in the opening. You yelp, startled, but at least it's Cat and not another Bureau agent.

"Come on," she growls out. "I'm taking you to Enzul." You nod meekly and let her lead, too exhausted to put up a fight.

Cat leads you through the bazaar and knocks on an unassuming door. A hooded guardian answers. "Ah, Cotriona. You've found it," he says, gesturing for you two to enter.

"Yeah, and they're on the hook for paying for your services," Cat grumbled.

Enzul snorts. You scratch at your arm as you feel a surge of magic beginning, and the guardian turns towards you, his eyes pinning you in place. He looks intrigued. "Well, why don't you both come on in and we can work out a fee for my help."

He leads you two inside and towards a table. "Now, I presume you want that artifact out of you before you end up dead?"

You nod vigorously and explain how you came about it as he examines your arm. Enzul's claw traces its way up your arm as you tell your tale, following the longest tendril that is wending its way down your arm. Another claw touches where the artifact entered. He presses down hard on both places and you feel his magic abruptly crescendo. It feels like his claws are driving down deep enough to hit bone, and then you feel the grating rasp of metal cutting under your skin. It’s agony worse than even the surges and it’s hard to even stay conscious.

When the pain suddenly dies down, you’re sweating and shaking, but the bracer is laying innocuously in the middle of the table.

. "My help does not come cheaply," Enzul says.

A bright idea occurs to you. You pull out the dragon statue you found in the water and ask if that would cover some of the cost.

Enzul's eyes gleam with greed. "Where did you find this intriguing little object?" he asks with a casualness that's trying to disguise his interest.

You explain about your escapade through the sewers. Cat laughs at hearing about how you ditched Taliesin. "Well, you've got some spunk and intelligence at least," she remarks dryly.

"I suppose this is enough to pay for my services," Enzul says, swiping up the golden dragon statue before anyone could object. "Now, if you'll excuse me, get out of my house."

You exit, breathing the fresh air of the surface world. No more cursed objects, it was time to go enjoy the Shifting Emporium.

@GuardianDragonak

You cautiously make your way around the edge of the room, hopping from platform to platform as you make your way to the ladder. You reach it with ease and climb. The ancient ladder makes odd groans and pops, but it holds as you ascend out of the sewer. It takes you a quarter of an hour to reach the top, where you shove a sewer grate out of the way.

You emerge and are immediately confronted by a rather angry-looking imperial, bright pink skeleton markings stark against her blue scales. Dark armor covers her, and you see a glinting sword on her back. She smiles, a slow, languid smile that gives you enough time to realize just how much trouble you're in.

"So you're the one who stole this artifact," she says. "I'm Commander Mirshann, head of the Reclamation Bureau. You know, I absolutely loved the chase you and your compatriots led me on." The heavy notes of sarcasm send your stomach plummeting. You glance down to see if you could fall back down, but it's a long way down.

You're hauled out of the sewer grate, chains immediately binding your wings down as Reclamation Bureau agents start hauling you to their field office.

You're thrown unceremoniously into a holding cell. A few agents bustle around you, examining your arm and the tattoo. You catch phrases like "difficult removal", "flood with magic", and "likelihood of death", and you scratch nervously at your arm as you feel magic building up.

You hear Commander Mirshann berating Tali in her personal office nearby, and he slinks out, giving you a guilty look as he passes. "Sorry," he says quietly after making sure no one could overhear.

A pair of scientists approach you with a device that whirrs ominously. "Hopefully this will remove the artifact," one says to the other as they clamp the device onto your arm. "Thankfully we had the time to finish it with the Puppy's misadventure in those sewers."

You swallow nervously. The devices starts to whirr louder, lights blinking on and off and sparks flying. You feel a prickle build up in your arm, growing stronger and painful as it crawls towards your heart. A warning light goes off. The two scientists look at each other before diving behind a desk.

The device is blaring a horn, and–

Everything goes white.

@Siritys @Goldia @dividedAnimus

You press the top button, and the device beeps and starts to whirr. You hear a dragon coming round the corner, and you stand up quickly. You relax when you see that it's Andy.

She gives you a grin when she sees you, and her eyes widen when she sees the device. It's now humming and beeping, lights running up and down it. "Is that what I think it is?" A small black cat pokes its head out of her bag and leaps onto your shoulder, leaning down to sniff at the device.

You shrug. You have no idea what it does, you just fixed it. You hand it over to Andy to examine.

"Sorry about Bigby by the way," she says, gesturing to the cat on your shoulders as she examines the device. "He's a curious one, especially when I don't have my golem watching him."

You give Bigby some scritches under his chin and say that it's fine. Bigby is a friendly cat and seems to have claimed you as his own already, settling in for a nap on your shoulder.

"So, it looks like this thing can track Second Age magic," Andy says with a whistle of appreciation. "You did a good job fixing it. I know Enzul has a ton of Second Age artifacts in his basement, from what Cat's told me. We can use this to go find him."

Andy fiddles with the device to configure it, and then the two of you set off to find Enzul.

You walk through the various districts, eventually getting the strongest signal around a rather unassuming house with a blue lantern hanging over it. Andy knocks on the door, and a hooded guardian answers. "And what manner of trouble are you two?" the guardian says.

"Well, I brought you a bit of an interesting problem, Old Man," she says, pointing at your tattooed arm. You shift uncomfortably as Enzul regards you.

"Come in. I'll remove that from you," he says, leading you two inside to a table. "Now, I presume you want that artifact out of you before you end up dead?"

You nod vigorously and explain how you came about it as he examines your arm. Enzul snorts at hearing about your chase through the bazaar. His claw traces its way up your arm, following the longest tendril that had just reached your chest. Another claw touches where the artifact entered. He presses down hard on both places and you feel his magic abruptly crescendo. It feels like his claws are driving down deep enough to hit bone, and then you feel the grating rasp of metal cutting under your skin. It’s agony worse than even the surges and it’s hard to even stay conscious.

When the pain suddenly dies down, you’re sweating and shaking, but the bracer is laying innocuously in the middle of the table.

“These were very popular in the second age,” Enzul says, picking it up. “It’s keyed to the creator's signature but not very well. Anyone that even had a passing similarity could also use it, so the magic users from that time started building in... failsafes, we’ll say. If you didn’t know how to use it, the magic in it would kill you."

You gulp and scoot away from the table, very glad it was out. Andy stifles her laugh.

Andy puts the device you'd fixed onto the table. "Here, payment for services rendered," she says.

Enzul eyes the device with suspicion. "It's not going to blow up on me, is it?"

Andy shakes her head. "No, no, I didn't fix this one, the intern did," she says, jerking her thumb towards you. "It tracks Second Age magic. Thought you'd like it, since I don't think Cat and I are going to be messing with any more Second Age nonsense."

"Very well, thank you. Now please get out of my house," he says, ushering you two to leave.

Outside, Andy gives you a critical eye. You ask her what she's thinking.

"How do you feel about jailbreaks? Cat's been languishing long enough."

@HedwigHufflepuff

As you go to push the bottom button, you hear a dragon coming around the corner. You hesitate for a moment, but decide to push the button anyway. It clicks into the device just as you see Andy walk up.

The device starts to whirr ominously, shaking and rattling in your claws. Andy's eyes widen when you nervously drop the device. With a disproportionate bang, you feel a rush of sparking magic roll through you. The wave of magic shoves you and Andy backwards, and the artifact in your arm burns.

Darkness takes over your vision, and you faint.

You come to later, in a cage. An imposing imperial stands outside of it, staring you down.

"So you're the one who stole this artifact," she says. "I'm Commander Mirshann, head of the Reclamation Bureau. You know, I absolutely loved the chase you and your compatriots led me on." The heavy notes of sarcasm send your stomach plummeting.

"Oh come on, Captain Serious Face," Andy says from your left. You see she's in the cage next to you, as is Cat, looking a little worse for wear. "You know you love the chase."

Mirshann's eye twitches. "That's Commander to you, thief."

Andy gives a mock insulted gasp. "My dear captain, I'm no thief. I specialize in rapid disassembly, and my companion here is in charge of specialty acquisitions." Cat gives a wry grin and a thumbs up.

Your arm prickles as Andy banters with the grumpy commander. You scratch at it, hoping no one notices.

"And what of this accomplice here," Mirshann says, roughly gesturing at you.

"An maligned bystander, a poor unfortunate soul who merely happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," Andy said with a dramatic gesture.

The prickle in your arm grows stronger. You feel like you're going to black out again.

"That's not what the witness reports say," Mirshann growls. "No matter, all three of you are going away for a very long time."

Your arm starts to glow, and the other three all notice it. Cat and Andy's eyes widen, and Mirshann frowns.

A massive magical pressure feels like it's barely being held in your arm, and you feel it creeping up towards your heart.

The last thing you see is Cat, frantically looking for any way to escape; Andy, praying to whatever gods will listen; Mirshann, shouting orders at the Bureau agents nearby; and–

Everything goes white.

@CharlieWeasleyy @GryphonSong @rubyredtan @BlackwatchGenji @Sidegrinder

The two of you dive headfirst into tinkering this old device, passing each other different tools. Andy has her golem, Smallfry, give a hand, as Bigby the cat explores the abandoned house you found.

It takes a while, neither of you used to working with each other or on technology this old, but eventually you manage to get it in working order.

"Well, Smallfry, what are the odds?" Andy asks, wiping sweat away.

"30.2 percent it works, 68.6 it does nothing, and 2.2 chance of catastrophic failure," the golem says in its flat electronic voice.

"I like those odds. What about you, intern?" Andy asks you. You nod. Thirty percent chance is better than not ever getting it off, and you want this artifact gone.

Your arm starts to prickle as the two of you fit the device around your arm. "It's probably going to hurt, so I'm sorry about that," Andy says as she clicks in the last slot. "Well, here goes."

She pushes the button, and the device starts to whirr ominously. The two of you look at each other, and you know in the pit of your stomach that this was a terrible idea.

Andy realizes the same thing and starts trying to tear it off your arm, muttering prayers and curses under her breath. Her cat tears out of the hiding space he found, running out of the house and into the bazaar. The device is beeping frantically, and you feel your arm start to burn. The magic in the device and your arm surge, rushing towards your heart and your head.

You give out a yelp of pain as you're knocked unconscious, mere moments before the device on your arm blows up, leaving a crater where the abandoned house once stood.