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

[thequitecontrary]

[ Mary still feels awful though. The last thing she's wanted with her magic is to keep people from getting hurt when it goes haywire. ]

Sweep the cobblestones a bit, if you can believe that. This jewel [ She holds up her red pendant. ] is so strong that I think it's overpowering me still. I'm not used to being able to do magic. It doesn't exist back home.

[inducings]

[ The Blood can sense people's Jewel rank without needing to see the Jewel, but Piper hadn't known what that vague warning of 'danger' in the back of her mind meant until she saw the Red and her focus suddenly snapped on it. Oh.

She's been researching. She knows what the levels are. And yeah, Red is... big. ]

...have you tried going someplace safe and doing something really big? If you keep trying to control it by doing small things, but you don't know how much power it actually has, it's probably harder to measure.

[thequitecontrary]

Do you think that would work?

[ It's true that Mary fears the power of her jewel. She's worried that she's going to end up hurting someone in the process of her experimentation... like she just did. What she needs to learn is how to harness it, and maybe the other woman is right. ]

[inducings]

[ Piper shrugs. ]

I don't know very much about it. How long have you been working on it?

[thequitecontrary]

Not terribly long for this spell in particular. As for the Craft in general, I only arrived here last month. I had no experience before that. Magic isn't real where I come from.

[ As far as she knows, at least, but she hadn't seen any evidence back home that it was. ]

[inducings]

Oh. That must have been a switch for you. Is there anyone at the Queen's residence who can help you?

[ She'd... think that they'd want to get on that, with a Red jewel. ]

[thequitecontrary]

Perhaps some of her advisers, maybe those who also wield a darker jewel.

[ Of course, they all grew up in this world and had well mastered their jewels at this point. Coming in as a complete novice with such a powerful jewel is taxing to her. ]

What was that you were trying? Walking on air?

[inducings]

Piper nods. Yeah. My boyfriend -- [ can already fly

n o p e ] -- is really good at it. So I'd like to be able to join him without having to be carried, you know?

[ Plus, walking on air is really cool.

And useful when thrown off high buildings. ]

[thequitecontrary]

Your boyfriend is here with you?

[ That must be nice. Mary wishes she had someone here that she knew from home. Sometimes she feels lonely and it would help if she had someone who knew and understood where she came from. ]

[inducings]

Jason. [ Her entire demeanor changes as she says her boyfriend's name. She is young, and he is her first love, and the wonder of both of them being here is a happiness that causes her eyes to gleam. ] He arrived last month. Which - is strange, because I didn't know he was gone until I got here. But I'm glad we're together here.

[thequitecontrary]

I don't believe I know him. [ Her reaction to him is sweet. Mary hardly remembers puppy love herself. She supposed that Matthew was her first real love, and at least she eventually got to marry him. ]

That is strange... but it must be good to have someone here with you from home, particularly him.

[inducings]

It was a really good surprise. [ She can't help but admit it. She knows they're really lucky. ] And it was reassuring to know we wouldn't be missed back home. What about you? Is there anyone here from your world?

[thequitecontrary]

No. [ There's certainly a sadness in her voice when she says it. ] It would have been nice to have some members of my family. Even my sister. [ There's a pause before Mary clarifies. ] She and I do not always get along well.

[inducings]

[ I'm an only child, she almost says, before remembering... that's not quite true anymore. She thinks with a wry wince of certain of her half-siblings. ]

Family can be difficult. [ She searches Mary's gaze for a moment and then decides to ask a different question. ] How have you found it here? Besides the magic, I mean?

[thequitecontrary]

[ Mary sighs. ] Perhaps I ought to have realized that a world in crisis would not be conducive to a comfortable stay, but for some reason I did not. This world is in quite a mess.

[ Between the infighting, the fires, and the murder, there are so many things wrong with Draega. ]

[inducings]

Yeah, they've definitely got... a lot of problems. [ The social division was insane enough, but the way they seemed to be actively trying to wreck everything was... you know, really human. And awful. ] It's almost hard to figure out where to even start. Besides putting out fires.

[ ...literally. ]

[thequitecontrary]

[ Quite literally. It's been way more than she'd ever imagined it would be. ]

I'm not the sort who's used to fighting. [ That's probably obvious just by looking at her. ] Fortunately, having the jewel can help with that if I can learn to control it.

[inducings]

[ Piper listens and considers for a moment. ] It's good to be able to defend yourself. What sort of things are you used to doing?

[thequitecontrary]

[ She gives a breathy laugh. ]

Riding my horse around my estate and attending garden parties and dinners.

[ There were other things she did, of course, but those things comprised her typical day to day routine. The only mode of defense she knew was how to shoot a rifle, and she didn't have one here. ]

[inducings]

[ Yeah, that does sound... different than what's required here. It makes Piper wonder why Mary said yes... but she is too used to turning what others may perceive as something less than valuable into a strength. ]

Then you're used to talking to people. And smoothing over awkward situations?

[thequitecontrary]

[ She pauses for a moment to consider that and then nods. ]

I am, yes. I'm hoping that's what I might be able to help with here.

[ That was more her reason for coming here rather than to offer any physical sort of fighting. She knew that she'd be rather useless in that case. ]

[inducings]

From what I've seen so far... [ Piper is slightly hesitant to offer her opinion ] There are plenty of people who can fight. As long as you can protect yourself pretty well, your other skills seem to be more along the lines of what this place needs.

[thequitecontrary]

I certainly hope so. [ She smiles. ] I'm able to create protective shields that are quite impressive at this point. Fighting is something that I probably won't ever be terribly good at. [ And she's perfectly happy to leave it to others to do. ]

[inducings]

If you can protect yourself and others by casting a shield that hardly anyone else can break, then I'd say you're doing pretty great. [ A little half shrug and a smile. ] Are you getting anyone's help at the residence or just practicing on your own?

[thequitecontrary]

I am able to use the shield to protect others as well, so that has been a benefit. [ She has to be relatively close to them, but she can shield both herself and the person who is fighting. ] Some of the natives at the Queen's residence have been able to help me, and I do train with the guard in the mornings, but I feel as though I have learned more in the library.

[ Which is a bit surprising, as she's not particularly bookish. ]