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

[ at least hanging out with him is never boring??

while emil shouts at the person they're trying to save, leo instead tries to flash them a smile, aiming for reassuring, hoping that it can be seen from inside the shield, still. ]

Sounds like a plan to me! On three? [ his grin gets even brighter as he starts, ]

Uno, dos, tres!

[What language is this??? Emil can only glean from context that this is counting to three, and even then, there's an extra second before he actually does move into action to hit the shield as hard as he can. He's got his purple jewel in hand, so at least this isn't entirely stupid.

Help him punch!!!]

[ just be glad he didn't do it in greek, or the morse code...

because of emil's delay, they're slightly out of sync — but no matter, as leo hits the shield with his breaker only a second before emil, it's still close enough to make the shield shake with the force of it. ]

Hey, not bad! You know, with a couple more hits, I think we'll get it.

[ leo throws a grin at emil and lifts his hand, as if to ask, again? ]

[Greek doesn't exist anymore either...!! Morse code, maybe, but Emil doesn't know jack about anything not Scandinavian, so.]

A couple more? [Why does it not work instantly! But fine, fine. He gestures for Leo to continue, and also--] Count again with your fake language.

[Which is not a weird thing to say at all, and anyway, he is Punch Ready.]

[ later, eventually, when he figures out that emil and lalli come from the same place, he'll groan at one of them that of course, how can both of them be obsessed with everything they don't understand being fake, but for now, he just rolls his eyes. ]

It's my mom's native language, man, not fake.

[ but count he does, and punch they do, and this time, there's a crack in the middle of the shield, shining brightly as it grows and grows.

after a few seconds, the shield splinters. ]

[It's fake, but he'll get to that in a moment after the punching— and then the splintering, and then the desperate rush to pull the hostages out of their bubble prison. He is not elegant about it, but at least this is... efficient?

It gets the people out of there, and that's what counts.]

That's— [wheeze, physical activity] Is that everyone?

[ meanwhile, leo doesn't even seem to be out of breath, or bothered in the slightest by either the heat or the exercise. he focuses on removing the flames so that it makes a narrow path towards the exit — the plant workers glance at him in surprise before he yells at them to get out of here.

then, to emil, ]

Yeah, I think so. Well, not too bad for a first try.

[Give Emil a moment to finish huffing and puffing over here, before he looks up and squints at this... this fire thing? This noticeable weirdness about Leo and fire that's been happening this whole time, that he's graciously not brought up yet??]

What are you— Hoooow are you doing that?

Huh?

[ somehow, leo manages to actually blink in confusion, before he looks around them, at the noticeable lack of smoke, and spreads his arms. ]

Oh, this? It's kinda my thing.

[ with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he just. lets some of the flames he's absorbed out, lets them cover him all over, so that for a second, he's less leo and more human candle, before he puts the fire out — and it's obvious he's unharmed, unhurt. in fact, even his clothes look exactly as they did before. ]

event: a gentle explosion

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