agentlelog | event: a gentle explosion

Entry tags:

event: a gentle explosion

I see a world just out of reach
With shoulders of giants at my feet
There’s not a challenge I’m afraid to meet

► The OOC plotting post for this event can be found here.

► Direct all questions to the mods at this link.

STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND
You wake, warm and comfortable, and realize that you’re no longer where you were when you went to sleep. The dream was real. As you clamber out of bed and open your door, an impassive footman greets you and leads you to breakfast in a large hall filled with many, many people. They sit around a hodgepodge of tables in a mishmash of furniture—nothing matches anything else, and no two chairs are the same.

The woman from your dream catches your eyes. She stares at you with open shock. “Well,” she says, as a number of males turn to her with withering looks. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.” She smiles at you. “Welcome to Draega, Stranger. Please, join us.”

Join them at the table and have your breakfast, Stranger. There isn’t much to offer: porridge, water, a bit of milk, some wrinkled fruits, and bread. Coffee, thankfully, is not in short supply. Meet your fellow Strangers, both the ones choosing to live at the Queen’s Residence and those who arrived in the night with you.

As breakfast draws to a close, the Queen’s Steward, Prince Loren Sorey, explains that you may choose to find your own home or stay in the residence for as long as you please. Those who stay will receive a modest stipend but are required to participate in Allairavar’s morning trainings every day. At dawn. Before breakfast. Those who go will need to find their own homes among the ruined buildings of the city and make their own money.

The court begins filtering out of the Great Hall, dispersing to attend their many duties. Linger, Stranger, and overhear…

“What did you mean?” The man leaning over the Queen is Prince Allairavar. His membranous wings flare around him, and his expression is menacing. “This wasn’t supposed to happen?”

Queen Fayura doesn’t look at all alarmed by the massive man caging her against a wall. “It was a one-time spell,” she says. “The web was—” Her eyes go wide. “I need to go look at the web.” She ducks under Allairavar’s arm, which could put a tree trunk to shame, really, grabs Prince Verim, and drags him from the hall.

Allairavar bares his teeth at the wall and snarls. The sound rumbles through the room, and dark temper washes briefly through the residence before all the tangled webs tucked in corners absorb it, leaving the building peaceful and clean of psychic feeling once more.

A TALE OF TWO IDEALS
At exactly 5:46pm, an explosion rocks the city of Draega. Black clouds belch fire to the northwest of the city. Concurrently, in Old Town, a mob of landens armed with Breakers and Muters descends on The Last Meal. They surround an older, Blood woman.

i. Black Out
The power plant maintained by the Tinkers and the Elektrics has exploded. Across Draega, e-line appliances shut down and the city plunges into darkness—the sun set some 45 minutes ago.

Prince Loren reaches out to approximately half the Strangers, asking them to go to the power plant. He shares a mental map with them so they know how to reach the building, as well as the Craft used for air-walking. The tutorial is quick and hardly complete, but now you’ll be able to run above the city to reach your destination.

The power plant burns. Black smoke pours into the air. Master Elektric Doriah organizes the Tinkers and Elektrics who were able to escape on their own. A quick glance reveals how absolutely exhausted she is. When Strangers approach, she sneers but isn’t about to turn away good help.

“There are still people inside. The Blood who did this trapped us in shields.” She hesitates only a moment before collecting Breakers from guildmembers carrying them. “Take these. Your Jewel may not be able to break through the shields.”

Inside, well-ordered building is a mess of fire and melting steel. Airwalking protects your feet, and shields can keep out the heat, but you’ll need something more to protect your lungs. Put out fires, stop systems from overloading, save the machines from complete destruction, and rescue missing workers who are suffocating and cooking inside shields. The guildmembers trapped in the power plant will assist the Strangers who free them, helping mitigate the damage done to the plant and keep it from exploding the rest of the way.

ii. Death of a Councilwoman
Councilwoman Vera enjoys dinners at The Last Meal, and this is well known by everyone in the city. Today, public knowledge of her schedule doesn’t work so well in her favor.

As she approaches the restaurant with her family, a group of landens descends on them. Muters prevent the Blood from taking any action that isn’t purely physical, and this is enough to throw most of them off their stride; they’re used to relying on Craft to fight. The landens separate Vera from her family in a short-lived brawl. She shouts and screams—“Let me go! Don’t you know who I am? The Queen will have you executed for this! Your families will be thrown out of the city! You’re making a mis—”

A shot rings through the air.

The landens peel away from one of their own, a young man gripping a Breaker in both hands. He trembles as he stands over Councilwoman Vera, whose expression is frozen forever in shocked disbelief. Her body crumples to the ground, blood from a gunshot wound on her chest staining the white fabric of her blouse.

In the silence that follows the shot, Allairavar shoves free of the crowd. “Go home!” he snarled, Craft powering his voice.

No one moves.

Except the young landen man. He takes off at a run, and the crowd is still too horrified to do much to stop him. Allairavar wastes no time. He plunges after the young man. At the same time, he reaches out to the minds of the Strangers closest to Old Town. *The Ebon Council is, collectively, a sack of reeking shit, and Lady Vera was a bitch,* Allairavar tells the Strangers. *But if we don’t get between the Blood and the landens, we’ll have another war. We can’t afford another war. Keep them from killing each other while I deal with this idiot.*

AIR TIME
Whether you catch the news on a Far-caster in the city or you’re spinning the dial on your own device, you’ll hear…

the news
…angered local landen families by her hard-line position that Blood homes should receive priority as the city continues to recover from the fires set by the Hunter Guild last month. [The man speaks at a brisk pace, hurried and harried as though he has too much to say and not enough time to say it.]

Councilwoman Vera is known for her vocal disdain for the landen Guilds, isn’t that right, Garret? [Another man, nasally in tone. He doesn’t sound rushed so much as put upon.]

[Garret:] Correct, Wilt. She—excuse the interruption, but we are just now hearing— [The feed abruptly cuts off. Static pours from the Far-caster regardless of what local channel it is tuned to.]

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Absolutely. We have much more work to do before we get to the point of asking for payment, anyway.

( Sansa knows that she does. She's only just arrived at the Queen's residence and she'll have to put in a lot more work before she thinks she'll be worthy of a boon so great as the one she asked for. )

Yes, I rather think so. I think I need a bit of something to eat and to sleep for a while.

( Sansa has never gotten lightheaded using this Jewel before but she's never actually used it this much before, either, and it's probably a good thing there's someone she knows and trusts from home about when she's less than her best. Otherwise, she thinks she might have to rely upon kindness from a stranger rather than a trusted friend. )

[He nodded, offering a hand to help her to her feet, ready to escort her back to the castle himself.]

We might want to think about finding somewhere to stay outside of the palace.

[It would be there's, even if they would have to work.]

We'd be closer than we are now.

[ he's a little afraid that rhus would tease or make fun of daylight's answer or his flustered state about dancing. that seems to be everyone's go to reaction whenever this branch of conversation pops up.

but no- instead, rhus makes the (very wise) decision to politely ignore daylight's, er, everything and instead tells a tidbit from his world that's related to the subject matter. it helps put daylight at ease and helps him refocus on the (cool) topic. rhus' cool points, like, quadrupled from that alone. ]

Oh- Oh wow! [ daylight's winglets perk up, wiggling now from how happy day is. ] That's so cool to hear. I don't think I've ever come across something like that before during my travels with my ship, honestly.

[ he's only been travelling for what? a few years, give or take? from what he can pick up from rhus' demeanour and everything, he happens to have experience (and stories!) in spades.

which, likes, makes him only cooler. more points for him. ]

Construct 8 sounds super neat! I'm glad you guys were able to hash out your differences and got to know each other better. [ and now, the important question: ] How big was he? Bigger than me?

[ because daylight is considered tiny in his world. he always suspects beings like construct 8 being bigger. ]

Ugh, yes, it's worse than everything else here combined. I'm thinking of pretending I'm sick every morning and seeing if that works.

[It won't work. It will never work, but he has to try.]

[Molly somehow misses half of the words- grasps the meaning, however, which is good and warms him to her even more- because he's trying to guess her age and wonder how many husbands she's had.]

First husband? You can't possibly be any older than I am. [He says, with a kind of delirious laugh, knowing that his physical age could be anywhere between his twenties to a more absurd number. He is two years old.] How many husbands can a person get in that time? I'm assuming some of them were purely political.

I'll consider that. [He's the worst influence, but he's also a literal two year old who has been in some bad situations and survived them, so he's not going to admit to being terrible while he has results to back him up.

He steeples his fingers under his chin and observes with wide, yet entirely red from corner to corner, eyes, and a bright teeth-bared smile.] Go ahead. I'm rooting for you.

I... Don't really remember, exactly. I was sort of just running in the direction of the screams and that was all I was really focused on.

[There was a lot of "not thinking" involved in all of this. Really, Molly should be ashamed of himself. He usually always has a plan.] Gods, if we die here because I didn't think to have an exit strategy, this is going to be embarrassing.

[The form in his arms makes a shocked gasp and Molly shushes them gently.] It's just a joke, friend. We're dealing with it.

Edited 2019-03-19 18:43 (UTC)

- embarrassing. Because the second he makes that face, Molly breaks into a series of giggles that he has to remove his own cigarette to indulge. "Oh, it happens to the best of us, friend. Better you than me."

He clicks his tongue and shows off his own pointed canines that have always been obvious given how often he bares his teeth when he smiles, but seem particularly worthy of note right this second, especially when he slides his cigarette back behind the left canine and resumes his smoke.

( Sansa takes his hand and leans on him just a bit. She has her pride, yes, but she's also quite tired. Jon has seen her in worse states than this before. )

It might be something to look into, once we have more money. I could take in sewing, I suppose.

All political. One betrothal and two husbands. I'm doubly a widow now. Triply, I suppose, if you count my betrothal.

( Sansa couldn't be happier about that - except possibly that Tyrion Lannister hadn't really been dead and he hadn't been terrible to her while they were wed; he's the one exception. )

Do I-?

[He squawks it out, but by the time the last syllable escapes him, Parado is gone, and everything is on fire. He only has time to stare dumbfounded for a second before somewhere a beam collapses and sends fresh sparks up and there's a louder roaring of fresh kindling igniting and making the flames spark higher in that area. The air grows hotter and the worker draped awkwardly across Molly's shoulder whimpers and clings to his jerkin.]

It's all right. I... Think he knows what he's doing. [He adjusts the weight he's carrying and begins stalking forwards, trying to shield the worker from the worst of the heat.] This is ridiculous.

[In response, he turns his own hands over, so they're palm to palm. The delicate fingers with their sharply pointed nails are hiding callouses of their own from the handling of swords and nicked and scarred as much as the rest of him. His snake tattoo that terminates in the back of his right hand has a mirrored snake head on his palm, both with their own blood red eyes.]

You're absolutely right. And, you know, there's been something I've been meaning to ask you. We haven't chatted much about what you used to perform back for your circus. I was thinking maybe there's a way to bring back some cheer to this place, even if it's just a little bit of spontaneous performance art in the streets.

[ Yeah, that does sound... different than what's required here. It makes Piper wonder why Mary said yes... but she is too used to turning what others may perceive as something less than valuable into a strength. ]

Then you're used to talking to people. And smoothing over awkward situations?

[ She's not sure about that, all those years of wondering what had happened... but her mother had been right about one thing - Tristin hadn't been able to handle it.

She tenses slightly, vaguely defensive: ]

Aphrodite.

[ She takes a breath, holds it for a moment, and then exhales. ]

I think I'd rather deal with the world right in front of me. Even if it is a completely different world.

[ A little half shrug. ]

Frost giants? [She asked, almost a little excitedly before calming herself. Why else would one have a wall Madde of ice and snow?]

Aye, I was born to it. [She smiles and nods] . That is good. I am thinking of offering 'classes for those that are not familiar, perhaps to bridge the gap a bit. If imperfectly. [She glanced down, she was a proud one regarding her craft.]

I think here, you may be best served to also become a wizard Jon. At least to defend yourself.

[She studied him closely with those ice blue eyes, he said true but not all. His look and carriage betrayed him as no simple soldier. And it intrigued her further.]

[ She can't help but roll her eyes a little, shaking her head as she walks back toward the park bench. At least Molly seems to be a friendly sort of troll? She can deal with that.

She climbs on top of the bench and then gives him a glance. ]

...didn't you see this was something you were working on too?

[ Piper does hate having an audience. ]

Sadly, no, not yet. I suppose there is always the possibility of someone arriving later, since it seems that more groups keep coming here.

[ Mary can understand fraught family relationships. In all honesty, she would not be happy to see her sister Edith here with her, but she does love her, even if they fight quite a bit. Perhaps Mary might even come to appreciate her presence if Edith were to arrive with a later group. ]

It... might be. [It sounds a good deal more like the Spanish and Portuguese games the soldiers were always bringing back with them, but one can never be sure.] I expect you'll find this much easier.

[Or, at least, she probably would if Horatio could avoid explaining the probabilities behind each trick. He probably can. Probably.]

Just a matter of who has the highest card of every go 'round.

[How suspicious would silence at this point be?

How suspicious would beginning to blather away after a clear inclination to spare syllables be?

How suspicious is the quiet flicker of concentration as Horatio considers all these options?

Probably best to just sip his coffee with a politely inquisitive air.]

Perhaps so, and you wouldn't be lonely. Of course, you might worry for them here, too, so that's a double-edged sword.

( Sansa thinks Mary is rather kind and sensible thus far, someone worth knowing, and she hopes she might know her better in the future as well. Perhaps Mary has no one from home but she does know Sansa and Jon, so she'll be certain to check in with her from time to time. )

How long were you here before Jon and I came?

Oh, well, that shouldn't be so difficult so long as I know how much each one is worth. Of course, that does depend upon you being honest with me. Lord Horatio, are you going to be forthright and honest with me about how much these cards are worth?

( Sansa says it with the softest hint of a smile playing on her lips, eyes alight with amusement. )

I am at your mercy.

[Mordred's seen a lot on the battlefield at Camlaan, but even so, she still winces at seeing those burns. She doesn't run away or anything though, placing her hands where Zita said to and focusing on holding the guy down without hurting him. Servants are normally stronger than humans, so she's pretty sure there's not an issue here, but with her jewel, she wants to be extra careful about not accidentally breaking something. Which is a good thing probably since she's showing more care and caution than she probably would otherwise.]

Yeah, got it. I've got him, so go ahead and get started.

[And then because she thinks it's weird to talk around the guy, and she knows she wouldn't like it if somebody was talking around her like she's not there...]

Just try and stay calm, okay? She's trying to help you.

[ clarke starts to help the woman who approaches her with her sprained wrist and she turns towards sansa for a brief moment ] We both have our strengths— so together we can both help and listen to make sure everyone is heard.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 47 of 56

event: a gentle explosion

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject