agentlelog | 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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ After doing her best to calm the Blood and the landen in the wake of Councilwoman Vera's murder, Piper's exhausted, but still not done, not while there's a building on fire and people could still be trapped inside. She's already turning toward the power plant when she sees, over to the side, a sudden giant column of fire, bright as a beacon. Just as suddenly as the column appeared, it was extinguished - and there was no smoke coming from anywhere Piper could see, nothing about that was a natural fire -- and the last time she'd seen something like that...

She doesn't feel tired anymore. She starts to run, as fast as she can, through the city to make her way to where that column had been. Fortunately, she's not too far away so just before Leo manages to return to the power plant, Piper catches sight of him.

Even (or maybe especially) completely covered in soot, there's no mistaking-- ]

Leo!

[ there will still be people who need help, leo thinks, and now I'm not in immediate danger of becoming a supernova, I can go back.

except, expelling that much fire takes its toll, and though he didn't let it go as far as he did with gaea — never that much, again, but it's still a lot. enough that his feet are stumbling, and a wave of exhaustion crashes over him, slowing his steps.

it's a shout that makes his step stop completely, though. ]

What —

[ for about two seconds, leo thinks he's hallucinating, that somehow the plant's fumes have gotten to him after all and he's imagining piper there, maybe it's just how much he misses her, and how much he thinks she'd belong there with them, with jason — ]

... Piper?

[ but no matter how many times he blinks, or pinches his arm, she's not disappearing. ]

[ Definitely Leo, because there's no one else here who knows her, and he's got like 20 seconds to prepare himself because Piper is barreling into him and throwing her arms around his neck in a crushing hug. She gives some strange mixture of a laugh and a sob because - he's alive, he's alive, he's alive--

And then abruptly she pulls back and punches his upper arm. ]

If you ever die like that again, Leo Valdez, I am going to kill you!

[ He's alive, he's alive and he's here and he's alive--

Stealing the cure! Not telling them about his plan! Blowing himself up?? She should punch him again. Her gaze sparks with it, lecture bristling on the tip of her tongue--

But he's alive, and she hugs him again instead to make sure of it, soot and residual heat and all. ]

[ the force of the hug nearly sends both of them careening back, and it's only by some miracle that leo manages to keep standing as he wraps his arms around piper, too.

and then winces. ]

Man, I thought I was done getting punched. [ he glances around, as though expecting nico to appear from somewhere and start handing out queuing numbers again.

when no nico appears, he grins at piper, hugging her back again. ]

Hi, Piper, it's good to see you. Like, awesomely good. [ and then, after a pause, ] I'm sorry, okay? You know I am. [ but he had to do it. ]

[ She does know he is, but she is not okay with this. He'd gone around their backs and just -- just -- sacrificed everything to save them, to save the world, and then he'd died and left them.

She looks at him for a long moment and huffs. ]

I have a very long lecture prepared for when I got to see you again, with things like telling your friends and not dying being the main highlights. [ Because she'd so, so hoped that she would get to see him again, get to actually tell him what she thought. She lifts up a hand to dash the tears out from beneath her eyes. ] But we can save that for when a building's not on fire.

[ You saved us. You saved everyone. And you're alive.

She really is so glad to see him. ]

[ he actually has the grace to look somewhat sheepish, a half-grimace on his face — he wouldn't, couldn't have changed the dying part, it was part of the prophesy and it had to happen as it was foretold... but could he have told them?

yeah. sure. in the end, not telling them was always meant to make it easier for him, no for them.

he smiles at her. ]

It's only, like, 23% on fire anymore.

[ Piper is of the growing persuasion that prophecies suck. ]

So you'd rather have the lecture?

[ She can see how that might be preferable to running into a burning building. You know. For just about anyone but Leo.

But she can't even hold her skeptical expression for long before she's returning his smile, grinning at him. ]

Come on, let's do this.

— on second thought, do you think I could help with it being a bit more on fire? Maybe forever?

[ if they're putting out the fires forever then he won't have to get the lecture, right......... ]

Yeah. Let's go in, see if there's anyone left there, and if not, then we're good. [ as they start walking in, leo keeping the fire and smoke away from them, he asks, ] Did you see Jason and Percy yet, or am I the lucky first one?

[ Piper freezes for a minute then breathes out: ] What?

[ She pauses and goes to grab Leo's arm. ] They're both here too? Jason's here?

Would I lie about this?

[ like, seriously. but he nods, grinning, because man, he's so happy they're all here. after this whole fire thing is over, they're going to have an awesome reunion feast. ]

Yeah. Yeah, they're here. All three of us got here at the same time.

[ Piper is so happy to hear that, she leans up and gives Leo a kiss on the cheek, shoot, sweat, smoke and all. ]

Best news given in a burning factory ever.

event: a gentle explosion

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