City of IF

[Shady Stoat]

Synopsis:

Keli suffers from visions/premonitions when she dreams. She runs away from her home town, when an official of a new religion – Itharien – comes seeking her out for ‘trial’.

Running North towards the city, she meets up with Shakal, a young werewolf from a tribe that has been cast out of the City recently. She travels to Shift City with the wolf, who then abandons her once inside.

Keli finds an inn to stay at, only to find that every citizen of Shift must attend an evening service of Itharien. She goes, but soon finds she has to run again. Chased into the dodgy part of the City, she gets mugged, only to be saved by Shakal and taken back to the last Were Stronghold in the city. The Oracle building.

There she gets healed and meets Erath, the cat-were who is the current Oracle of the City. He tells her that she has to be the one to defeat Itharien, and that Shakal will guide and teach her the magics she will need to learn to do it. The Oracle Building is due to be attacked with a massacre for all left behind, so Keli and Shakal flee to a safe-house in Old Shift (the dodgy part of the City), where her magical training begins.

Before too long, the burning of Old Shift begins, as Itharien tries to get rid of all the magic-users within the city. Keli and Shakal flee while they still can and return to the Were camp, south of Shift.

Keli completes the training paths that the Oracle laid out for her, in the next few weeks. However, the leader of the Weres seems to take a dislike to her, despite Shakal’s insistence that she is the salvation of the pack. Malkai (the Were leader), comes to see her eventually, and offers to ‘show her what real Were-Magic can do’. Keli is unsure whether to trust the offer or not…

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CHARACTERS:

Keli: Protagonist. Has nightmares about terrible scenes of torture, murder, rape and the like. Recently, especially about the sacrifices held by Itharien.

Shakal: Young Werewolf. Accompanied Keli to Shift City and later became her magic-guide.

Erath: The Cat Oracle. Dead now, but gave Keli advice and information about what steps to take to defeat Itharien.

Lord Garth: The Inquisitor who came to Great Lake and set Keli running.

Art: The boy in the portrait talisman who enters Keli’s dreams now

Itharien: The Lord who began the Cult of the Beast, destroying all magic-users and using the Soul-Stones in sacrificial rituals.

Malkai: The leader of the were-pack to which Shakal belongs. Resistant to the idea of trusting any human, including Keli

Renau: Malkai’s counterpart, sympathetic to Keli and preaching peace, not war

KEY PHRASES:

Stone of Oracles: Keli asked the Oracle what a major milestone would be in her fight against Itharien. The Oracle answered that she must retrieve the Stone of Oracles from the Imperial Gardens in Shift City.

Old Shift: The East part of Shift City – a place plagued by earth-shifts which make it near uninhabitable. The slums.

Call of the Evening: The 6 o’clock call to the Itharien Temple Service each night, which all city-dwellers must attend

Portrait Talisman: A magical trinket, where a small item is imbued with a picture that, if held up to the light, reflects in full colour and detail, on the nearest surface.

Soul Stones: Otherwise known as sacrifice stones, they are what the Priests of Itharien use to burn the bodies of their sacrifices, from the inside-out. Apparently neither good nor evil, they are simply ancient artifacts that have been discovered beneath Shift City, which Itharien is using to his own ends.