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

[illequipped]

I. breakfast of champions

[Or, whiners, notably Emil. He loves the free new bed! Really digging that, actually! But the breakfast is terrible and he hates it, and he also hates the very thought of waking up before breakfast to train and then not getting any good breakfast.

You may find him:

a. trying to trade literally any part of this breakfast for more fruit pieces, because they might look gross but at least they have some flavor, OR

b. scrutinizing the Important People having their important discussion before hastily leaving the room. He must be concerned about it, you would think, and he is, but not for any good or sensible reason. No, of course not. He'll lean over to whoever's next to him after he goes and ask,]

They're gone, so do you think the kitchens are hiding the good meals? I wouldn't be surprised if they gave us this slop on purpose.

[Breakfast Conspiracy]

II. fire time

A. incompetent magic fumbling
[Of course Emil is going to the exploded building. He sets fires for a living, true, this is not his usual ballpark, but setting fires comes with knowledge of how to deal with fires, and so he'll at least be some help here, he thinks. Somehow, some way, in this city that's big and confusing and won't let him just crawl back into the nice bed— ugh!! Whatever!

He's going and that's what counts, as soon as... magic... makes sense? He's standing there, and he's got his Purple Dusk jewel thing, and he's been told how to do this, but he's got nothing. Nothing's happening. He's completely lost.]

Hey— [hi, hey, listen to him] Did you get any of that? I didn't.


B. actual action time
[His heart is in the right place once things really require it, in his defense - but he's not adept at search and rescue, as such. His overall strategy seems to be "run around" with a side of "shout until someone shouts back," with a healthy helping of talking to himself and talking to bits of the building as it starts to fall apart around them. He'll start talking to the Breaker he's toting next, so please be a sentient being he can shout at.]

Where— [Where are you going next? he starts to ask, voice still raised over the sounds of the fire and the building groaning around them, and then an especially loud and nasty creak drowns out the rest of his sentence. His gaze darts up to a beam overhead, and- ah-] Look out!

[Is he going to have to run and tackle?? He's 5'5" but don't worry, he can knock you the hell down. Don't die from falling beams!!]

III. wildcard

[hello yes do you want a specific starter? do you want to pm me or pp jojoveller? please do! i'm Open]

forcing lalli to go shopping: the thread

[illequipped]

[It's been a long day and, frankly, it's been terrible. Emil's going to have soot in his hair and on his clothes and everywhere for weeks, which is frankly unacceptable now that they've made it out of the barren wilderness. He spends, no lie, a good hour locked in the bathroom washing his hair like four times, and when he finally emerges he is still in a Mood over the state of his clothes. Why couldn't their hosts give them free clothes, too? The food was terrible so the clothes would obviously be worse, but it would have been polite.

His only... comfort, if it is that, is that Lalli is here too, to be petty and complain with him. It's late; he's exhausted, and Lalli is probably more, but after such an action-packed and Terrible day, what Emil wants is to do something. He's restless; being in a new place like this is stressful and worrying and he doesn't know how to handle any of it, he's already figured out! Things are exploding? They apparently aren't even supposed to be here despite that dream, so now he has to wonder just what's going to happen to them, and—

And he'd rather not address anything emotionally difficult or stressful yet, so it's time to Do Something. Specifically, it's time for Lalli to come with him for this purpose. What is Lalli doing at this hour? He better still be awake, it's only evening and Emil is Here, nudging at him for attention. Hey, hi. Listen to him.]

Lalli, let's go see the shops.

[Will this calm Emil down? Maybe not, but he'll get to buy things with that stipend and won't have to resort to pacing around the room.]

[ilves]

[What exciting thing is Lalli up to? Chilling underneath Emil's bed, of course, because the moment his friend disappeared into the bathroom, Lalli had a feeling—a hunch—that Emil would be in there for quite some time. It doesn't make any sense to him; it took him all of five minutes to dust most of the soot and stuff out of his own hair, but he's content to curl up in his makeshift nest and contemplate his Opal while Emil... does what Emil does. It's been a Day! He's running on fumes at this point, but while he could turn in for the night, there are so many things to think about... so many events to reflect back upon...

And there's also, you know, the person currently poking his shoulder. ...Ah. Lalli blinks up at the Jewel he's holding above his face, willing himself back into this world before he finally shifts his eyes over toward Emil. He's still not used to understanding Emil outside of dreams; that's going to take a serious adjustment period, but it's definitely the one good thing that's happening so far. The saving grace of this terrible place.]

Mrr...

[That's IT!! No, no—let him tuck his Jewel back into his pocket and, like, heave a sigh... as he rolls over to crawl out into the open. Appreciate him.]

I don't need anything? And I'm tired.

[Some Things Never Change.]

[illequipped]

[Here they are, in a strange foreign wherever-they-are where they can understand each other, and Lalli keeps making sounds at him instead. Amazing! Emil is, naturally, relentless; he even sits down right there on the floor and leans back against his bed while Lalli decides whether or not he wants to crawl out into the land of the living. He, too, is tired, but he needs one last push into true exhaustion to be able to sleep without, well. Having to think about all this.

And that last push is Shopping!! He does indeed appreciate Lalli, something he proves by reaching over to brush some errant soot off him as he crawls out. How much of that wound up under the bed... Lalli.]

You can sleep later.

[They're going to be woken up for training before breakfast. He's not thinking about it.]

I want something to eat that isn't that horrible porridge! Don't you?

[ilves]

[Lalli would take a tin of ancient tuna over that plain porridge! Maybe even a bowl of Mikkel's Candle Stew™, but he still makes another grumpy noise as he stands and gives his poor legs a quick stretch. What he really wants is some serious sleep, thank you very much. A full eight hours. He's earned it.

But what about... something truly tasty? Something sweet? Does he want that...]

...Yes. [PLEASE, GODS.] But what if all the food here is bad?

[Typical Lalli! Anyway, he's up and ready to go... lead him before he decides this trip isn't worth it...]

[illequipped]

[Food: the great motivator. Emil may have only just slumped down on the floor here, but he has just enough energy left to get back up and reach for Lalli's arm, to tug him out the door before he changes his mind. Let's go! Shopping!]

We'll find out! If it's really all terrible, then...

[Amazing question, let him think on this very seriously as he directs them down this hallway. Hmm!]

Then we have to learn to cook, I guess. [grim...]

[ilves]

Mm. You should.

[Because he already knows how to catch a squirrel and toss its entire carcass into a pot? He's Good. Their future looks bleaker with every passing moment, but the one bright spot here is that Lalli... actually knows where they're going! Kind of! He's zipped around the Queen's Residence a few times today; his mental map of the place is almost there, which is why he pulls his arm free of Emil's grasp and tugs him in the opposite direction.]

The stores are this way. [Left, not right? Duh. As to how he knows this... wait for it, wait for it—] I saw them when I was doing that weird walking thing.

[He says this so nonchalantly... like he didn't hate every second he spent in the air...]

i

[championbittersweet]

[Jonathan has noticed the decrease in food quality overall - or seeming decrease, as he cannot taste it himself to tell - and isn't terribly surprised that people are trying to get what they prefer to eat or are generally reluctant to eat at all. In a way he appreciates it; his own hunger is not one that can be met by the fare on offer in the dining hall and while he has been doing his best to ignore it, it helps to have an external focus. For Jonathan, this is the wellbeing of those around him and he stalks through the dining hall with an eye out for those who seem as though they could use additional help.

He spots one such individual, young and new, and notes what he's looking for. It's a moment for him to get his own serving of wrinkled fruits and he returns to the figure and stands over him. His hunger consumes enough of Jonathan's attention that he doesn't consider how his appearance, gaunt and pale and with a hungry gleam in his eyes, might not be particularly reassuring.]

Not fond of the porridge?

[illequipped]

[Porridge is, frankly, the worst! The absolute worst. If Emil could have his way he'd eat an entire cake for breakfast, but since that isn't happening, at least the wrinkled fruits are sweet. The porridge would be better with a full cup of sugar to dump in...

This is what he's thinking about when someone speaks just to his left; sugar, you know. Cake. Normal, reasonable things. So he looks up-]

No, it's—aauuuhhhh.... [what] Are you okay?

[championbittersweet]

[The response startles him as, despite how he feels, Jonathan hasn't taken much time to really look at himself in a mirror and isn't certain what he would be able to do about the situation anyway. Although he suspects he can guess why the young man seems so shocked.]

I'm fine, simply a little... under the weather. [He says, doing his best to be reassuring with a small, tight-lipped smile.]

It's nothing you need to worry about.

[illequipped]

[Look, Emil has seen "under the weather," and he's seen people turned into literal monsters, and while he's not thinking this giant, towering, vaguely frightening man is a literal monster, he thinks this is a little far past under the weather.]

Uh, sure, that sounds... soooo true. I believe you? [He tries to smile back, but it looks more like a wince. He is nailing this social interaction.]

Maybe you should eat more porridge.

[championbittersweet]

[He can tell that the response is meant to be sarcastic, but Jonathan chooses to ignore it, although he glowers somewhat at the mention of him eating.]

I'm not hungry for porridge.

[He's not the only one it would seem but their reasons are different. He indicates the wrinkled fruits on his tray.]

Do you want these?

i.

[unwieldy]

[ Haein watches after the Queen as she leaves, his gaze critical after overhearing the conversation. She doesn't look at all drained or feeble like she had when the first wave of Strangers had come in, and now there was something going on with the web?

He's got a handful of questions that he's left pondering about, but all of that is dashed aside when the Stranger next to him leans over and speaks. ]

What? [ He turns his gaze to Emil, eyes narrowed in an unspoken accusation because how dare you interrupt his thoughts. ] You want to steal from the kitchens?

[illequipped]

[Hmm, okay. Emil has seen that look before, and so— nothing, no effect, it rolls right off him and he keeps going. He's desensitized.]

Steal, no, no... [That's criminal talk! He would never liberate good food from wasting away in the kitchens, lost forever.] Just take a look.

[unwieldy]

[ What the heck... How is Haein supposed to properly stare daggers into someone when they're desensitized?

Maybe this unimpressed once over will work instead. ]

They're not going to have anything for you.

[ Not that he knows for sure, but better to kill that idea real quick so he doesn't get roped into anything stupid. ]

[illequipped]

[Please go on a food liberation adventure with him, he's incapable of doing anything on his own. Pleeease.]

How do you know? Did you already ask?

[He doubts it!! It seems he's found the one person having a worse time than he is at this breakfast, which is remarkable, but not getting him any better food, so. Hmm.]

[unwieldy]

[ He'd rather DIE.

But oh god, this guy? This guy right here? He's super annoying!! What's with all the questions? Haein hates him already and he hasn't even really done anything yet. ]

No, [ he says with an exasperated sigh. ] But what would be the point in keeping better foods from us?

i

[romancekiller]

[clarke had actually noticed how the food quality had decreased but she isn't actually too fussed with the type of meal they are receiving if only because she is used to living off far less than this and worse conditions so she is eating her breakfast as usual.

she similarly overhears the conversation and as the queen leave the room, it only leaves her with more questions because what was that even about? she is abruptly brought out of er thoughts hearing the person next to her speak up] What makes you think that?

[illequipped]

Because... [Ah. You know, he didn't think as far as why, just that he's totally sure this is happening. Because people are cruel? That sounds like it covers all the bases.]

Well, because they clearly don't want us here!

[romancekiller]

If they didn't want us here they wouldn't be giving us food in the first place or even letting us stay here either.

ii.b

[thedarkbond]

[The man Emil calls out to has about six inches on him, but is very skinny, so he's probably fully able to be tackled. Fortunately, this is not a situation where pretending to be oblivious profits Ren any, so at the warning and the creaking, Ren's gaze darts upwards sharply and he manages to dive out of the way before the beam crashes down.

Straightening up, Ren turns towards the source of the voice. While he's not wearing his jewel visibly, the colour of his shield gives him away as the same jewel level as Emil, Purple Dusk.]

Are you okay? [His voice is a tiny bit muffled by the dampened coat he's using as a makeshift face mask, but still plenty audible.]

[illequipped]

[Emil, a dingus, is halfway into trying to perform a grand rescue before he realizes he doesn't need to, and has to comically backtrack to avoid throwing himself into the path of the falling beam, as it were. It's all very slapstick. He trips and gets a faceful of dust, coughing despite the cloth over his mouth.

Cool. Cool cool cool.]

Iiii'm... great! Fantastic. You moved.

[This isn't a complaint, obviously, but now he's on the floor.]

[thedarkbond]

[Whoops. It's probably a good thing Ren's mouth can't be seen right now, but the way his cheeks curve upwards at that definitely indicates he might be a little bit amused under the coat.

At least he comes over to offer a hand up, though, moving his breaker into one hand so he has one free to offer out.] Mmm, well, isn't that the point when you warn someone something's about to fall on them? I'm sorry it made you fall over, though.

[Even if he sounds somewhat amused, it does at least sound genuine. Probably. Ren's very good at sounding genuine.]

[illequipped]

[Hmm, okay, maybe he does have complaints to lodge about his pratfalling embarrassment being soooo... visible. He accepts the hand up, hastily trying to wipe his face clean with his other sleeve before the filth is also readily visible—

So the rescue mission is going great. He's dirty and sheepish, which is par for the course.]

Yes, yes, whatever... We should go before the rest of this place comes down on us.

[thedarkbond]

[There's a good point to be found there, but Ren hums a little doubtfully as he backs out from where the bearing had fallen, glancing around the area.]

Actually, if it's going to come down I kind of want to stay long enough to check it properly...it'd kind of defeat the point of this if we accidentally left someone behind to save our own skins, right?

[Things are chaotic enough in here that it's entirely possible they could pass over someone in the area until it was far too late, either because the place caved in on them or they were stuck in a shield too long. It's not a thought Ren particularly likes entertaining.]