agentlelog | event: a gentle explosion

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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.]

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[ Between the explosion at the power plant and the murder of the councilwoman, the Strangers' lives in Draega have been a whirlwind lately. There's still so much that Mary needs to learn about the politics of this world, not to mention learning about how to control the power of her jewel. It doesn't leave a lot of time for leisure or socializing.

Sometimes she has to make time though. That's what she's doing when she comes across Horatio shuffling cards. She remembers meeting him the day he was listening to the farcaster program about flirting and seemed so embarrassed at the discussion. ]

I don't think I got to introduce myself when we met the first time. I am Lady Mary Crawley. [ She holds out her hand to him. ]

[It feels right to balance out the mornings of exhausting training with something else half-familiar. It feels right to let his fingers move brightly over the familiar bend and give of playing cards, as hypnotically comforting here as it had ever been at home.

There's a stutter in the movement as he catches sight of this particular woman approaching. There's already colour in his ears as he stumbles his way to his feet, abandoning the cards to catch and bow awkwardly over the offered hand.]

Lady Mary. [There's no room to fold as dramatically as he had when he first met the Duchess, but it's a valiant effort all the same.]

I'm pleased to meet you officially. [ The two of them stand there clasping hands awkwardly for a moment. Mary raises her eyebrows slightly as she waits for him to continue. ] And... your name?

[In an ideal world, of course, a brief greeting would have been sufficient. In a slightly less ideal but better than nothing world, Horatio would be able to sink through the floor whenever a posh voice and arched brow were this close at hand.

But this is the world they're in, and all there is to do is clear his throat.]

Lieutenant Hornblower, ma'am. I'm-- sure the pleasure is mine.

Indeed it is. [ She replies with a teasing smile. Mary is pleased to meet him as well, however. He seems sweet, if not a bit clueless.

Glancing down, she notices the cards on the table. ]

Were you planning to start a game?

[Well. As long as they both know that went terribly.

Still, it's a comfort to see the conversation already veering toward something Horatio feels infinitely more at ease with than social niceties. His hand releases Mary's to drop to the cards again, shuffling them from the disarray of being dropped into something closer to their natural order.]

I had-- hoped to, ma'am. [For all his usual flat affect, there's a clear apology somewhere in the stutter between words.] Not many takers for whist, I'm afraid.

Whist. Goodness, it's been a long time since I've played that. [ Not since childhood, actually. It's fallen out of popularity since then. ] In my time, we play bridge, which is similar, or poker. If you can remind me of the rules, I'd be happy to join you though.

[ Mary motions to the chair next to him, a silent request to sit down. ]

[That's a request, right? That feels like a request. That's enough, at an rate, to prompt Horatio to move and pull out the chair Mary's gestured to.]

Truly, ma'am?

[Practicing Craft takes a huge amount of mental energy, true, but it would be infinitely nice to settle into something his mind is familiar with for a moment or two.]

[ Mary sits. ] Truly. I played it as a child, but I've forgotten the rules. If you teach me, I'll play a round or two.

[ She would agree that it's not only less tiring than Craft, it's also far easier. A mental break from working on her spells is entirely needed. ]

Two hands each, then?

[It's hardly perfect, but it will scratch this particular itch. It's hardly what he's most familiar with, but it will feel very much like home all the same.]

That's perfectly fine. No wagers though. [ She'd rather not bet on a game that she's just (re)learning. Even though she can be a clever card player, that seems like a recipe for loss. Besides, it's not as if she has much coin here anyway. ] How many cards must you deal?

[Keeping his face in a careful mask is easy. Stopping his head from instinctively tilting to the side for a heartbeat as he finishes shuffling is apparently impossible.

Polite women hardly like gamblers, Horatio is fairly sure. Professional gamblers probably aren't much better.]

So please you, ma'am. [Flustered as he often seems, he certainly deals with a crisp certainty.] 13 cards to each hand.

[ It's the most confident that she's seen him yet. Mary likes it. Perhaps he's found his niche here.

She collects her cards and holds them up, fanning them out and inspecting her hand. ]

What next?

[It doesn't speak well of his social standing that gambling is the niche in which he feels most comfortable. True, it's where most soldiers and sailors find themselves landing, but that's hardly a good look on an officer.]

Aces high, first trump is spades.

Alright.

[ They start to play, Mary moving her cards around in her hand in order to put like cards together. ]

Where were you last stationed before you came here?

[Studying the cards keeps the flicker of bitterness from bleeding out of his heart and into his features.]

Hispaniola and Jamaica, before the Peace.

[He hadn't actually been 'stationed' when he returned home, after all. Actively paying the Navy back was hardly a posting.

Better to focus on opening with his low diamonds than on that fresh memory.]

To think that people in your time were actually upset by the notion of peace.

[ Mary wonders what her husband would have thought of that, being that he actually had military experience. She smiles and puts some cards down on the table. ]

Would you believe that France is one of our allies in my time?

[The cards can't stop the next flutter of emotions from catching the corners of his features. The flicker of tension is brief, merely a momentary press of teeth down on the inside of his own cheek.

What an odd thing, to be so absently reminded of the scars in one's heart.]

...it is... rather difficult to imagine, to speak plainly.

[ Mary glances up from her hand in order to gaze at Horatio. He seems upset by her words, and that's not the reaction she was expecting. ]

The Germans are a larger threat now.

[ One that still looms, despite their being cut down to size with the Treaty of Versailles. ]

[Thank goodness the years between them haven't ruined the fine tradition of stiff upper lips and ignoring flickers of emotion.]

Is that so?

[Best to focus on that. Best to move into the safety of discussing war than to linger on the ache of peace.]

[ Never. The British would die before letting that happen. ]

Indeed. They're more unified now. Apparently our king being their king's cousin didn't make any difference.

[ She places a few of her cards on the table. ]

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event: a gentle explosion

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