event: a gentle explosion

[thestewards]

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.]

Comments

you know what i'm here for (it's prompt v-a)

[ilves]

[Lalli isn't... the most talkative person in the world. He's content to sit and stare at his porridge in perfect silence, thanks, but—ah, is this person talking to him? He blinks warily over at him, wondering if he can, like, slip away before he's expected to respond...

...Well, it's unfortunately too late for that! Small talk: Lalli's nightmare scenario.]

Mm. It tastes like dirt, [he says oh-so flatly, lifting his chin as he pushes his bowl far, far away.] Or candles.

[Has he eaten candle soup before? Maybe so.]

[mekhanikos]

[ that's okay, because leo could probably hold a conversation in his sleep if needed to, and so getting at least some kind of a response is excellent.

even if the response is.... this. ]

Wait, [ he says, hand rising, palm up in the universal sign for stop, ] Candles? How do you know what candles taste like?

[ and then, after a pause, ] Actually, I'm not sure I want to know. Because that sounds tragic.

[ilves]

[Doesn't everyone have a crazy Danish cook on their team? No? Ah, well. Lalli shrugs half-heartedly, because truth be told, it wasn't that bad. They survived...]

It wasn't sad. [So literal! That's Lalli's brand, which is why he leans in a bit, brow furrowing.] Do you want to know, or not? This isn't hard.

[Stuuuuuupid.]

[mekhanikos]

Trust me, it was. I may not have been there but I know tragedy, and eating a candle is definitely one, like, right up there with stuff like Hamlet and the fact that they didn't stop at three Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

[ that's..... yeah. super relevant, to be sure. ]

What kind of a place do you even come from, if eating candles was a thing there?

[ilves]

[Hamlet? Caribbean? Movies? Lalli stays where he is for a moment longer, honestly baffled by this onslaught of strange things he's never heard of, before he finally leans back against his chair.]

...Finland, but we don't eat candles. Danish people do.

[One Dane possibly put candles in their soup, so of course all Danes do this strange thing! Duh!]

Where do you come from? [A beat, and then:] It sounds weird.

[mekhanikos]

[ there's a moment as leo tries to think of what he knows of northern europe (not much, to be honest), and though far it be from him to argue with someone who is actually from there... do danish people actually eat candles??

he's pretty sure the answer, at least in his world, is a solid no. ]

Hey, it's awesome! ... and weird, yeah, I'll give you that. [ but that's mostly because of the gods and giants and titans and whatnot. ]

Anyway, I'm from the US. You know, US of A? America? At least country-wise, it sounds like we come from similar worlds. Since Europe is totally a thing in my world, too.

[ilves]

[Danes eat candles, Norwegians are Too Loud, Icelanders are annoying sheep people - Lalli's Hot Takes™. He'd probably have some Hot Takes™ about Americans, too, if he... actually knew anything about America. Was it even a real place? It sounds fake, which is why his eyes swiftly narrow.]

...Aha.

[That's a NOPE, even though Europe does sound... vaguely familiar to his uneducated self. He's seen a map of the entire world, like, once, and he was amazed to discover that the world is ROUND, but—hmm. Hmm.]

You're lying.

[This betrayal!]

[mekhanikos]

[ it takes a lot to render leo speechless, but somehow, lalli has managed just that. for a solid half a minute, leo gapes.

then, ]

How in Hades did you come to that conclusion? What do I have to gain by lying to you, like, seriously? What's the point in that, when there's three of my friends here from the same place as I am who'd totally mess up the lie if I even tried?

[ he groans, the sound of someone who is 20000% Done with everything. ]

Oh man, I'm too tired for this conversation. And too hungry. Okay, you know what we're gonna do? I'm going to make tacos, then we'll eat, and you can tell me all about your weird, candle-eating world and why exactly you think I'm lying about America.

[ that. that is one solid plan right there. ]

[ilves]

[Those thirty seconds of silence? Golden. They're enough to convince Lalli that his assessment is absolutely correct, honestly, but—ah, of course this person follows them up with more talking! Too much talking. The only reason Lalli doesn't cover his ears and/or walk away is because everything just comes at him so darn quickly.

Anyway, being too tired (and too hungry) to talk is the one thing about this impromptu speech that Lalli fully understands, but... ugh. Why explain this elsewhere when he can do it right NOW!]

Because everything you say is weird! Wrong. [A slight lift of the chin, a sniff, and then—] And you keep making up words, like... "tacos."

[Tacos: officially the fakest shit Lalli has ever heard.]

[mekhanikos]

Making up —

[ in that moment, leo comes to two realizations: that his new buddy is a stubborn piece of butt, and that the tragedy of his life is even more dire than he knew, because clearly... he's never heard of tacos before.

which means he's never had>/i> tacos before. ]

Ohhh boy, just you wait, Chef Leo's Impromptu Taco Shack Of Awesomeness will be open in, like, two seconds.

[ and just like that, he starts pulling stuff out from seemingly nowhere — a handy thing provided previously by his toolbelt and now by the jewel — including a pan, a miniature oven, some corn tortillas, seasoning and tofu.

as he sets up the oven and lights it up with the flame that suddenly appears on his hand, he says, ]

Look, we're gonna do this right, I gotta heat these up properly and then whip up a sauce and marinade the tofu, I mean, we could be using meat too but my friend's vegetarian so we got used to this... anyway! Won't take long.

[ilves]

[Lalli is indeed a stubborn piece of butt, which is why he puts both hands on the table and prepares to push himself upright—until, of course, this weird boy starts pulling things out of thin air. ...Huh. It's one thing to hear about Craft, but it's another thing to see it in action; like, even though he understands a solid 20% of everything that comes out of Leo's mouth, and even though he's still convinced that Leo is a LIAR, the spectacle alone is enough for him to freeze.

Plus that's, you know. Definitely food. Strange food, yes, but... food.

...

...Well. He could say something, if he really put his mind to it, but as it would probably be something along the lines of "You talk too much"—it's probably a good thing that he's too busy giving that tofu a very suspicious look. What... is that? He doesn't trust it.]

glares at my previous tag, why does html hate me

[mekhanikos]

[ there's a bowl, and spices and some kind of sauce from a bottle that's almost empty going into it, and then leo dices up the tofu nicely and drops it all there, shaking the pieces around. yeah, it'll be good. it's too bad piper isn't here to eat it, too, but that's alright. she's had his tacos plenty of times before during their travels, and this guy?

this guy needs some good food. ]

I know it can be hard to believe, you know, all these different times and places and worlds, I know there's someone here who comes from a time that's like a hundred years before mine, and another who knew my friend's mom except in her time and world, she's not my friend's mom at all —

[ his gaze never once moves away from what he's doing, making sure the flames are hot enough, that the tortillas are heated properly, that the tofu will be just perfect. ]

And it's weird, okay? Like, crazy, for me, too. It'd be so much easier to just claim they're all lying and ignore what they're saying because, wrapping your mind around the idea of multiple worlds? And times? It's straight out of some kind of sci-fi movie. I mean, it'd be really easy for me to tell you that you're lying, that there's no way whatever heck's happened in your home is true, but I won't, because I believe you, dude. I believe everyone's telling the truth about their homes, because... when you're away from it, when you don't even know if you're getting back, why'd you lie? When remembering it is all you got left?

[ his voice remains steady, even cheerful, if a little forced. at the end of his speech, he turns to look at lalli, with a plate of two tortillas filled with his marinated tofu sauce in his hand. ]

Here. And when it's the best thing you've ever tasted, I totally reserve the right to say "I told you so".