A hub dedicated to pirates of sea and sky, outlaws, mercenaries, bounty hunters, and those skirting the law. Open to anyone (pirate or not!) 18+ and across all NA Data Centers.
What you'll find here:
-Weekly pop-up events
-Swashbuckler Sundays @ Hidden Falls (Halicarnassus, 8 pm EST to 11 pm EST)
Due to when major (US) holidays fall this year, our schedule for November and December has seen some adjustments in order to accommodate the holiday season!
November 25 and December 23, the fourth Fridays of November and December respectively, we will be CLOSED.
December 2 and December 9, the first and second Fridays of December, we will be OPENÂ at our usual time!
Additionally, with the end of the year right around the corner, our yearly Heavensturn Celebration will be on December 30.Â
For this special event, we will have a special (limited) menu to ring out the old year, and we are looking for IC bards and performers to utilize our stage and help make our last opening of the year a night to remember!Â
(If you are interested in participating, please reach out to us via Discord.)
We will return to our regular schedule of second and fourth Fridays in January!
The Cloak & Dagger is hiring for all service and security positions related to the venueâs operation! For more information about available positions, please see our hiring page here:Â https://cnd.crd.co/#hiring
i canât believe i made it through september only skipping 3 prompts. wrote almost 11k total, not counting other writing i whipped myself into doing on days i skipped or free days :thumbsup:
now onto nanowrimo prep and outlining solo writing for my blorbos. good talk
If Iâm honestâI never thought that Iâd actually make it. I half-expected to be struck down on the spot, since people in Ilsabard whoâve been keeping track of the war say theyâre protected by the divine, or something. But I survived my first steps off the ship, so thatâs promising! The people here donât seem much different from the people of Ilsabard⊠I mean, their culture is different, and Iâll need to figure out some of their accents, but theyâre all just trying to make their way.
The ship came in to port just before dawn. I figuredâthis could be a new chapter, since thisâll be my first time in a land that isnât suffocated beneath the shadow of the Empire. I wanted to be presentable for it, but Iâve spent so long without a brush that I ended up just having to cut most of my hair. It looks like shit. I should have waited until I could buy some scissors.
Still. Maybe thingsâll start going for the better. Maybe Iâll start a new journal, here, since this one is almost out of pages.
The damnedest things would come back to him as he laid in bed, floating on the boundary between sleep and waking. It wasnât for want of trying to clear his head; if anything, Janos found it difficult to summon up the will to actively think of anything while the dayâs aches and pains were still stabbing at his body, bruises and blisters rising on his skin from injuries he didnât remember getting or just regular wear and tear. He would need to replace his boots, soon, he knew, but the memory that rose up like a cloud of dust from a drawer that hadnât opened in years wasâthat of an antique electrical fuse, the first thing that his father had shared with him.
The last thing he asked himself before falling asleep was if he would still be here, in this moment and this bed, if his father had kept his toys to himself.
Storm season in some parts of Eorzea were easily several times more terrifying than the  worst winter storms that closed their claws around Garlemald, in Janosâs opinion; while Garlemaldâs cutting winds could kill a man within the hour if he left home unprepared, there was nothing quite as terrifying as the prospect of having his skull caved in by a hailstone the size of his fist. Thankfully, shelter was not hard to come by in this neck of the woods, but who knew how long it would take for the storm to passâŠ
There were a good number of people out there who took for granted what you could get away with if there were enough people around. Like a feline familiar melting into shadows, ice into waterâa shed jacket, a silk tie slipping from around his neck. Flip the jacket in-side out, reveal the patterned lining on the inside that was, in many ways, nicer than the black exterior. Pull a scrunched silk beret previously posing as a hurriedly-folded handkerchief from a pocket to slip over his head, his subdued business suit transforming into a loud cacophony of colors and patterns befitting a performer due for a comedy club appearance more than a conman. His glasses removed, tucked away in a now-interior pocket of his suit. Gloves slipped off and tucked away, replaced with motley of thin, golden rings that glittered in the streetlights.
Just like that, Leonnaux disappeared. In a way this was a performance in its own rightâbut rather than working his magic to hide the Queen from prying eyes, he hid himself in plain sight.
The nameless man exhaled a plume of smoke as he settled into a crouch near the nightâs campfire, prodding at the tinder that heâd used to feed the flames. Embers crackled and rose like fireflies off of the flames, the heat welcoming against the cold that always sank its claws into the Twelveswood as the leaves changed and the people prepared for the long winter. It was as sure as the ebb and flow of the tides, of the rushing of the water through the rivers like blood through the body. He was closing in on another cycle beneath the boughs, another cycle which would bring with it new fortunes.
Leonnaux had learned a long time ago to heed the three Vâs of information brokering:
Verify, verify, verify.
Because if it sounds too good to be true, thereâs a very good chance it isâbut anything is possible in Ulâdah, and itâs also possible that it isnât. Likewise, just because something fits into an established pattern does not necessarily mean that the claims that one might hear on the Lane are automatically trueâŠ
It is this meticulousness in his line of work that allowed him to make a name for himself anyway, so it would be unwise to squander it on hear-say.
That was the motto of the office that Leonnaux had been told to direct his inquiries toâthe same office that the Platinum Mirage employed for quiet solutions to their more prominent problems. While the Mirage famously offered the services of its in-house enforcers to its esteemed clientele, to use those selfsame enforcers publicly would draw too much unwanted attention to matters the powers that bee would rather have kept private.
Such as the disappearance of Laurantâs sister.
He supposed he ought to have counted himself lucky for the lead; it was only a matter of time before this line of inquiry reached a dead end, and if these fixers couldnât throw him a bone, then it was unlikely that anyone could. Were the cityâs deepest shadows not worn as a veil, the rumors could have made each of the officeâs employees legendary in their own right.
The hustle and bustle of Ulâdah suited Leonnauxâs tastes much better than anywhere else. The streets, lined with merchants; the denizens, cloistered together or wandering by; the wanderers, passing through Eorzeaâs most prominent trade hub under the blessings of NaldâthalâŠ
It was so much easier to simply exist anonymously than it had been in Gridania.
THE LAW SAYS THERE ARE THREE ELEMENTS TO A CRIMEâž»
Mens rea, or the âguilty mind,â which refers to the culpritâs intent of committing a crime;
Actus reus, or the criminal act itself, or the physical elements that constitute the crime;Â
and causation between act and effect.
MODUS OPERANDI is a major collaborative plot arc centering around a heist being planned by the self-proclaimed leader of the Ebonguard and proprietor of the Cloak & Dagger, Crow.
The main body of the story will center around the heist and will be divided into two parts: âmens rea,â the planning phase, and âactus reusâ which covers the heist itself. Along the way, side stories centering around different characters and concepts will open up for relevant characters to participate in.
We are seeking collaborators for the main body of the plot, which covers the heist itself. Ideal candidates are lore-compliant RP groups with a vested interest in a long-term campaign with multiple player character factions in play, who are situated in such a way that they would stand in opposition to the Ebonguard. Ideally, this would not be a one-sided arrangement, so if you are interested please be prepared to brainstorm and consider what you would want out of a plot like this!
For more information regarding what weâre looking for on our end and how to get in touch, please see our Carrd:Â https://ebonguard.crd.co/#cc
vis. @balmungrp @ffxivrp @mooglemeet & viewers like you! reblogs are appreciated!
for ffxivwrite 2022
day 19: turn a blind eye
wc: 846
conceptualized as a follow-up to this, but i overestimated my ability to write follow-ups to story concepts that are over a year old. also i dont actually know how to play blackjack. iâll revisit this later
âHit.â
The Lalafell next to Leonnaux tapped two fingers on the table and was rewarded with another card. The game had only just begun, but as far as Leonnaux could tell, this was one of the Platinum Mirageâs more discerning patronsâone who was just as happy to take home his weight in gil as he was to lose it, and who oft employed the services of the debt collectors who lined the Mirageâs halls. It was just him and Leonnaux himself at the blackjack table, now; the other players having called it quits for the evening, retiring back to the mirror-studded bar on the other side of the room.
This man, the sole other player at the table, was on what most might call a âhot streak.â In other words, a trap to lure in the uninitiated, drunk, or just plain overconfident gamblers. The Miqoâte dealer across the table from the two of them seemed to know that as he turned his gaze over to the Duskwight, his lips curling into just the slightest of wry smiles.
And, in reply, Leonnaux slid a stack of chips over, doubling his initial bet for the hand.
âDouble down.â
The dealer wordlessly dealt him a card, and Leonnaux flashed him a smile in thanks as he leaned back in his seat, toying idly with the turquoise feathers affixed just behind his ear. If his count was correct, then this card would be just enough to bring him to 20, all but assuring his victory unless the other player or the dealer managed a blackjack this hand. Theyâd been playing long enough to be running out of cards, after all, and while there was always the matter of the cards that the dealer wasnât using, Leonnaux had been playing around with cards for long enough to trust his gut.
One more win ought to get the right kind of attention, he knew; some eyes were already on him from his time at the roulette table, and the only reason heâd moved from poker to blackjack was because he had only narrowly avoided winning himself a bloody nose at the poker tables. Thankfully, his opponent causing a scene expedited things somewhat.
The right kind of attention tonight, was, of course, the wrong kind.
âAre you sure about this? I mean, what do you think you can do there? Break my record for gettinâ thrown out?â
It had been a few days before Leonnaux reached out to Laurant again, meeting once more in that smoke-choked bar far beneath what the Brass Blades considered to be worth the efforts to police. It was a few hours until sundown this time, thoughâand therefore several hours before Laurant went to work. Still, the dark-skinned Duskwight seemed like he was an early riser, which suited Leonnaux well; he appreciated the chance to run his client by the plan of action before diving into things later that night.
When Leonnauxâs painted lips curved into a smile, it was less as himself and more as Renee, the persona heâd crafted for himself before heâd taken this job. âI can do a bit more than youâd think. The Platinum Mirage might only open its doors to the upper crust of the city, but itâs not like they have a guest list. So. All you need to do is look like you belong there, and have enough gil to ante in.â He folded his hands in his lap.
âYou have that much?â
âNo,â Leonnaux replied frankly, âBut I know some people who do, and I know that they owe me favors.â
âIâTheyâre not gonna just turn a blind eye to that, mâRenee. Youâre going to get thrown out.â
âThe intention was never to stay.â
In the course of Leonnauxâs brief to his client, heâd left it at that. After all, he didnât need to know the particulars of how little old Renee, a bounty hunter of little regard, was going to get into the Platinum Mirage. It wasnât his business that Renee didnât really exist, or that Leonnaux was sitting on a nest-egg that he was more than happy to bring to the table, having sold off some of his ill-gotten gains from his previous job already.
At any rate, if his deceit didnât attract the attention of the floor manager, then the volume of his winnings that evening certainly would. His victory in the game was but a foregone conclusion. Heâd won with an 18 rather than a 20, as planned, but when the dealerâs hand came to 17 and the Lalafell beside him ended up busting, he would take it. The amount that heâd won over the course of the night was already beyond what he could have imagined heâd ever lay hands on when he first arrived in Ulâdah.
And no sooner than he got up to leave the table with his winnings was he accosted by two of the Mirageâs security guards, clad in suits with brass knuckles hooked to their belt-loops.
âExcuse me, miss; would you mind coming with us?â
Heâd honed his art as one would a knife, until it was as a razorâs edge. Some mages might have preferred to branch out to other schoolsâand indeed, heâd considered it for a time, but every new technique and trick he picked up along the way (be it from reading about other trades or learning from others about their preferred methods for spellcasting and the like) inevitably ended up assimilated into his preferred method to the madness. Little tricks to add credence to his illusions, such as moving small objects without touching them; stealing the color from various items heâd acquired over time in order to more finely tailor his disguises; even combining a reagent with a scrap of paper bearing a simple arcane rune that he could use as a focus to generate smoke in a small vialâŠ
Leonnaux liked to think that his applications of magic were somewhat novel, though he knew that he would not have what he did were it not for the foundations that his ancestors laidâand protected, for centuries, while the denizens of Gridania continually scorned their adherence to the old ways. It wasnât even, necessarily, that they feared what they didnât understand; it was a more active kind of scorn than that. On the Wildwoodsâ part, perhaps it was a symptom of their willingness to turn their back on their own history, whereas the Duskwights cherished their origins in the network of caverns that had been lovingly carved out beneath the Black Shroud.
If he was being honest, he thought it was all the better. The more people thought they knew about what spellcraft he practiced, the less they would actually care to understand, and that suited him just fine; it let him practice more openly than he would have been able to if heâd stayed in Gridania, after all.
Sweet smoke curled past his lips as he let out a long exhale, leaning back against the wall that framed the window of his bedroom. He had opened it, just a crack, to let the smoke escape, whisked away on the other side by the breeze that wove its way around the apartment complex. It wasânice, in a way. The chance to be left alone to his thoughts was not rare, but at the same time there was a special kind of peace that came over him sitting in the window seat, one (of many that he owned and used) blanket draped over his lap while Menphinaâs rays illuminated his moon-pale skin and cast his silhouette half in shadow. Heâd slept a while, before waking automatically some bells later, his body reminding him that sleeping through the night was not how he usually operated. But he did not want to disturb his beloved, and so he crept out of bed and retreated to the window sill to smoke.
for ffxivwrite 2022
day 15: row
wc: 1611
content warning: gun violence, et al
It wasnât long before they reached the armory proper, though the route was a little more circuitous than Janos remembered it being. Perhaps that was a natural consequence, though, of some hallways being blocked, either having been destroyed in the disaster or purposefully sealed in an effort to stop the flamesâ inexorable advance. The door had, at some point, been removed from its hingesâperhaps by Imperials responding to the disaster, so that it would be easier to remove the surviving ammunition and weaponry and ammunition from the facility before it could be looted by opportunistic mercenaries and rebels.
âThereâs nothing here,â Janos assessed.
âAh⊠I guess it was naive to expect anything to be left after so long. I guess I should have expected a castrum going down to be a bigger deal⊠Every soldier the continent over probably made their way down here to pick up whatever the Garleans left behind.â
âThey wouldnât have left much of what we had here, I think.â He pressed his lips into a line. Of all the things Janos did remember from back then, perhaps the thing that stuck with him the most was the way the armory had been arrangedâand what, exactly, it had contained. The facilities of the castrum had always been outdated, that much was true. But as far as the projects he recalled working on, he could think of very little of it that the Empire would suffer to leave behind for scavengers to make use of.
Janos absent-mindedly traced his fingertips over the lockers embedded in the wallâarranged in neat little rows. Pulling a few open revealed nothing of value inside: just the organizers that had once been used to space out the drawerâs contents and ensure that everything was maintained in good condition while it waited to be used.
âYeah,â Red replied after a thoughtful delay. She did not follow Janos into the darkness as he examined the drawers, though the room was a dead end anyway. It wasnât long before Janos returned to the entrance to find her staring at a particular spot on the floor, kicking at it with the toe of her boot.
Janos gave her a wordless nudge. She did not budge.
âDid I ever tell you,â she began instead, âWhat happened here?â
He shook his head.
âWhen the chaos first broke out, I killed one of the chief engineers.â Slowly, she lifted her hand up to pantomime the act of holding a gun, pointing it at the empty air in front of her. âI ran to the armory to arm myself against the warmachina, and a lux found me there. I guess IâI panicked, it happened so fast; one moment he was yelling at me, wondering who told me I could be in here, telling me the order was to shelter in placeâand the next, I shot him six times in the chest.â
Janos was quiet, standing beside her, for a long moment. His gaze fell slowly to the spot on the floor she had been kicking at, before rising back to her hand, poised with her finger wrapped around an invisible trigger. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other before looking away again.
â⊠I see.â
That was all he could really manage; he wasnât sure what kind of response it had elicited from him, given the vague sense of dread that had been curling in his gut ever since theyâd arrived. He kicked himself for sounding so callous almost as soon as the words had left his lips, but then gave himself a moment to think it over. His gaze drifted upwards, to the now-blind eye of the lone security camera in the room. It had been more a statement to conscripts that efforts to steal items out of the armory for âuntowardâ purposes would be futile; from where it was situated, the camera had a view of the entire chamber, including where they stood near the entrance.
âHow have you escaped the Empire for so long?â
She blinked once, then offered him a melancholy smile. âLuck, I guess.â
âBut⊠Theyâd have you on tape.â He nodded up to the camera. âFace and everything, from here. This deep in Imperial territory, and the Frumentarii havenât dragged you away from camp in a bag or anything.â He cracked an awkward smile at the thought. No one knew how they operated, least of all him; perhaps they were biding their time, for whatever reason, butâŠ
He hadnât realized sheâd been holding her breath until she let it out in a long, long sigh. âI meanâŠâ Her lips curved into a smile, her eyebrows knitting together inâhe didnât want to call it pity, but what other word was there? âHow do any of us? Look at you, too, so far off the beaten path.â
Janos couldnât deny the truth in that, especially if there was even a small grain of truth in what heâd been told about the incident itselfâhow the moment the alarum had sounded, he was nowhere to be found; how most of the warmachina that started acting up had been ones he personally attended to⊠It wasâimpulsive. Sloppy, even. If heâd been trying to make himself into a hero, force the hand of a superior to award him with honors he could take back to his familyâŠ
He wrapped his arms around himself, suddenly feeling too exposedâdespite the heavy vest with pouches of supplies that obscured his silhouette, despite the fact that under even one layer of fabric, there would be no way to see the long-healed scar that ran from the bottom of his ribcage most of the way down his torso in a messy diagonal line.
There was no denying that Janos was AWOL at best, a traitor at worst now that his eyes had been opened to the truths of the world that the Empire so desperately wanted to hide from the motherland.
âI guess so.â He kicked at the spot on the ground once, twice, unsure what to say or what to make of it, before adding. â⊠We should get going back to the others.â
He started away, but was quickly stoppedâRedâs hand wrapping around his wrist.
âJanos, wait.â
A sharp exhale. âWhat is it now? Weâre not going to find anything here.â
âItâs just⊠I justâŠâ She drew a breath in as he turned to face her. âLook. Havenât you ever thought about going home?â
Home. A loaded word. Rather than let all if its memories play against his eyelids when he blinked at the question, he frowned and replied, âThereâs nothing left for me there.â
âBut⊠What if the reason no oneâs come after you is because they know thereâs some kind of mistake? No oneâs memoryâs infallibleââ Janos frowned at her words and she quickly amended them. âI mean, maybe what you were told is wrong. You were nursed back to health by rebels, right? Maybe they wanted you to think you were a traitor so that you would rely on them.â
But the damage was already doneâno oneâs memory is infallible, just look at yours. It was easy enough to fill in the blanks in his head.
âTheyâd never take me back regardless. Being too stupid to separate fact from fiction isnât an excuse for not reporting in; theyâd brand me a traitor either way. Where is this coming from?â
She stiffened at his scrutiny. â⊠⊠⊠Iâll put in a good word for you, Janos.â
âThe word of a murderer means something, all of a sudden?â
âNo, no, I meanâŠâ She sighed. âI guess itâs time to be forward with you. Iâm not really a murderer, or a traitor, or a mercenary at that. I was sent to find you, and figure out how much you knew about the incident. But, if you really donât remember anything⊠Thereâs a very good chance youâre as much a victim in this as anyone else. I mean, why would a guilty man run into the line of fire like that? You still have people waiting for you back home, wondering if youâre even alive!â
âShut up.â
âIt doesnât make any sense, does it?â
âI said, enough!â He raised his voice, then, and for a moment it echoed through the deserted armory, the empty, burned-out halls. âYou were a spy, Red? Is that what youâre telling me?â
âWellâyesâbut noâI run intelligence, I wouldnât call it spying, reallyââ
âYou work for the Frumentarium, and you lured me here? For what? What are you after?â
âLook, like I said, itâs not like that; I donât think youâve done anythingââ
Honeyed lies, so sweet theyâd rot your teeth out of your skull. It was all spies ever knew. He flitted through dozens of possibilities, dozens of ends: she didnât have back-up, or at least she didnât yet; she seemed confident enough in her abilities that she could, whatâbring him to the armory, corner him and kill him? It was a dead end, after all, deep into the complex. Or was her objective to capture him alive? Torture him for information he didnât have, then have him executed as an example?
Where his entire family would stand there, watching him hang?
Janos had never drawn his gun faster in his life. Red gasped, throwing her hands up and backing against the wall, staring down the barrel as she stammered, reaching for the words that would win him back over. Trying, and failing, over and over againâuntil Janos pressed the cool steel of his revolver to her lips.
It was a rare rainy day in Ulâdahâwhere the skies had darkened and opened up, granting the city a much-needed reprieve from the summer heat: the kind of heat that wore you down, that threatened to rip your soul from your flesh and grind your bones to dust by the time the sun had made it across the sky. It was the first real sign that autumn was starting to take hold in Thanalan, a short-lived season of torrential downpour as the climateâs focus shifted from trying to fry its denizens alive to trying to drown them. Where the Shroudâs autumns were a period of reaping rewards and the forest preparing for a long slumber beneath a blanket of snow, Ulâdahâs usually ended up lush until the temperatures dipped below freezing during midwinter.
It was a break that Leonnauxâs welcomed, resting his forehead against the window pane as he watched the rain fall. A gil coin danced over his knucklesâa way to keep his hands busy, more than anything elseâand for a long time he just listened. The rain came down in sheets outside, crashing against the stone walls of the Sultanaâs Breath, the roof of the complex, and the window panes. it was a steady hum interrupted only intermittently by the creaking of the windmillâs never-ending turn over-head.
Heâd make a point to enjoy itâwhile it lasted.
