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

[Jonathan stares at him for a little too long, pale eyes unblinking and flickering just for a moment down to his throat.]

What would be the point of tricking you? [He asks roughly.] After bringing you here? What would I have to gain from it?

[Blink, for god's sake!! Emil doesn't know where else to look, so he spends a good couple seconds just looking right past the man's head, like that's a normal thing to do in conversation. In his... defense, he's like this regardless.

The thought that Mean Pranks have some purpose other than making him look foolish does rustle his jimmies a little, though. Sensitive.]

I don't know! Laughing at me? I don't trick people.

And you assume that I do? [Jonathan returns evenly.] We don't know each other, so the assumption that I must be the kind of person who would enjoy playing a prank on you for no purpose beyond upsetting you hardly seems fair.

[He sets the fruits out and, with some care, offers his hand. A handshake isn't too risky, although the closeness of the young man's pulse is a risk in and of itself right now.]

I am Dr Jonathan Reid.

Well— hmm. I guess. [He's politely sheepish about this assumption, in his defense, but also— people tend to do that to him, so... Never mind!!

A handshake while he's sort of eating breakfast is only a little awkward, but alright, fine - he shakes hands.]

I'm Emil. Are you really a doctor? Because you do look terrible, no offense.

[Emil's hand is warm with blood in his and for a moment Jonathan can see the fluttering pulse of blood beneath the skin before he blinks the vision away.]

I'll manage. It's a... personal problem. Nothing that can be easily addressed but also not anything that is contagious. My own cross to bear.

But please, take the fruit. I'm not hungry for it.

Uh. Alright. I don't really get sick, [he does, but not intelligently,] so... thanks?

[What does one say to this... the fruit isn't even good, but he'll pick up a sad, apricot-looking thing to be polite.]

If this is all the food they have here, I'm running away to somewhere with real restaurants.

You might find that difficult. [Jonathan had noticed the shift in food quality, and a few nocturnal trips had made it clear that it wasn't simply the palace having this issue.]

The city itself is experiencing a food shortage. Considering we are new arrivals here, it's understandable that there may be some resentment from the people who already live here and have worked for this food.

[That's it, he's moving to the wilderness. Even leaves off trees would be fresher than this. Still, that's a reasonable explanation, and he has some experience adjacent to places that are severely lacking in good food, but of course the facts laid out plainly like that make him--defensive.]

Well, it's not my fault. Nobody told me about the food shortage in my sleep.

I didn't say it was your fault. [Jonathan returns evenly, his tone shifting more towards that of someone lecturing a child which... probably isn't going to help his case any.]

I simply thought you might want to consider how it seems to those outside of our group and that perhaps you should be grateful for what you have.

[Emil is sensitive, but still - dude.]

Do you always tell people that a city full of strangers resents them for something they didn't do on purpose? Just wondering.

[He isn't one of the rambunctious idiots throwing food around, anyway. Man should be allowed to complain about breakfast without shame.]

I'm not wasting it.

And how would it help to hide the truth from you? The situation is not ideal, for anyone. Pretending otherwise is folly.

You could just say the part about there not being a lot of food without adding the part about how nobody likes us.

[In Emil's opinion there's no pretending in that version and so it is Fine.]

It isn't that no one likes us but just that you should be aware of certain tensions.

There's a great deal at play here it seems, different groups that we're all caught between. It's useful to know where you stand with them.

event: a gentle explosion

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