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]

[His breakfast friendship offer, rejected... Nah, it's fine, he'll pick at the mediocre bread in due time.]

Oh— Sweden. I guess I was stuck in Iceland before I got here, though. Spending all summer looking at sheep...

[There's a pause, because usually he can just tell based on accent where someone is from - there are only five countries to choose from, after all, as far as he's aware. So, then,] What about you?

[inducings]

[ If Piper had only known it was friendship bread on offer! Then she probably would have taken it. As it is, the porridge is... well, she is following Emil's example and cutting fruit in it. Maybe that will help? ]

Los Angeles - America. Though... New York most recently, I guess. I've never been to Iceland, I didn't know they had a lot of sheep.

[ Okay, time to take the plunge and... wow this porridge sure does have the consistency of really running clay. ]

[illequipped]

[The porridge is terrible indeed, and the fruit doesn't really help but it's almost worth it to pretend. Emil hums, stirring his own bowl, considering...]

I have no idea where that is.

[This is, at least, less ridiculous to say than "that doesn't exist," which was his kneejerk response.]

[inducings]

[ She blinks. ]

Seriously? [ She doesn't mean to sound... like those Americans you always read about on the internet, but... it was kind of a big country. ] It's... on the other side of the Atlantic ocean.

[illequipped]

[The ocean has a name?? Emil is truly terrible at geography, but that doesn't change that he's pretty sure everything outside of Scandinavia, well—isn't there anymore.]

Uhhhh. [UHHH] Well, I've heard of it?

[inducings]

...yeah? [ There is something more and something weird going on here, and Piper would like to know what it is now, please. ] What did you hear?

[illequipped]

Okay, read— and admittedly, I don't remember much of public school.

[Public School(tm), the dreaded nemesis. He passed the exams and immediately forgot everything except for in bits and pieces. He pokes at his breakfast a bit more, frowning at it. Hmm!]

Well, no one's heard anything from over there for the past 90 years. I can't give you any more than that.

[inducings]

[ Piper would agree - public school, private school, they're all awful. But considering she was in New York the day before, and she was fairly certain that Iceland and Sweden were, you know, there as well... ]

90 years? ...what year is it where you're from?

[ Be...cause... something has to be off here. ]

[illequipped]

[Oh, it's about to get weirder!!]

It's year 91. June, but that doesn't really matter.

[Plus(?) side: school is always terrible no matter the year?]

[inducings]

...91. Not 1991 or 2091, just 91?

[ And he'd said 90 years since anyone had heard anything from America...

Yeah... this is starting to hurt her head a little, but... she's already on a different world... ]

[illequipped]

Just 91. [And with that implication left sitting there where everyone can acknowledge it...] But your people have mountains over there, don't you? Somewhere to retreat to? So maybe there's nothing to worry about!

[Is this reassuring!!]

[inducings]

[ Just 91. Okay then. She can't help but ask: ]

...retreat to from what, exactly?

[illequipped]

Trolls, beasts, giants. Take your pick, really. Although if you don't live by the sea, that's one less horrible mess to worry about.

[It's fine! It's just fine.]

[inducings]

[ Piper blinks slowly. It is a very loud blink.

She knows a little something about trolls, beasts, and giants.

She also emphatically knows that the giants have been defeated. So. ]

What happened with the sea?

[illequipped]

Bigger beasts. I saw one, once— it was half the size of a building, and that was after it got stuck half on land and mostly died!

[The sea is terrible and should be stopped.]

[inducings]

Well... that sounds horrible.

[ She frowns a little. ]

But... none of those things have happened. [ And they won't, if she can help it. ] So now I'm wondering if our times are different somehow or if our worlds are different.

[illequipped]

I... guess? I wouldn't know, seeing as how the most I know about your side of the world is I've seen a globe before.

[He knows the Earth is round, which is actually not as widely taught as it should be back home, but never mind that. He frowns at his breakfast again, thinking of home and of this place and the things that have apparently happened to it.]

Well, for your sake, I hope we're from totally different worlds, however that's meant to work.

[inducings]

[ Year 91.

She gives Emil a quick quirk of a smile. ]

Me too. [ She takes another bite of her porridge. ] So... back home, you fight monsters?

[illequipped]

Uhhh, kind of! Mostly I set fires. I'm a cleanser.

[Which surely doesn't need explaining, so another bite of stale bread it is.]

But I have fought monsters! I'm kind of an intrepid explorer these days.

[inducings]

[ A cleanser... with fire. So... cleaning up the dead bodies? Piper glances at her porridge and decides she'll circle back to that. ]

What are you exploring?

[illequipped]

[Sheep farms and mountains-- no, no, that's just his mediocre summer vacation on deck.]

The Silent World. Nothing out there but monsters and... old stuff.

[And trauma, but maybe a place called "The Silent World" that's full of monsters implies as much without him having to say it.]

[inducings]

[ Yeeeeeeeeah, it doesn't exactly sound like a tropical vacation. Though nothing else about his world does either. ]

Is that why you're exploring it, because of the old stuff?

[illequipped]

Yes, you'd have to be an idiot to go out there just to go. Or at least without a whole army behind you.

[Fun, right... so much fun. He's very impressive, he knows!! but he also doesn't much want to talk about it in, ah, gory detail.]

So, what about you? What is America actually like?

[inducings]

[ Piper is curious about just what exactly is worth the risk - what kind of old stuff would they be looking for and why? But she's already dealing with being in an alternative world and figures they can circle back around to that. ]

Um, it's... big. [ Ugh, try again, Piper. ] I'm from California, which is on the west coast. It's beautiful there. But I live in New York now - that's the other side of the country. So I'm really glad that the whole 'monsters from the water' thing hasn't happened.

[ Because she has to deal with more than enough monsters as it is. ]

[illequipped]

[Cool, that's... a few more names that don't mean anything to him. He knows where "America" is, generally speaking? He also thinks "America" is all of that land over there, so California must be very large! Hmm!]

Is it warm? Are there... palm trees?

[This is a huge shot in the dark but he's from Sweden and it's fucking freezing all the time.]