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

[This isn't exactly a thing where Lalli comes from, either, and yet—here he is, pouring most of his coffee into his fellow Stranger's mug without the slightest clue that this is some seriously strange behavior. He didn't want it?? This just Makes Sense. What doesn't make sense is why anyone would pay good money for this stuff, because seriously...]

It shouldn't be. [Just a flatly stated fact as he sits back down and peers at the tiny bit still left in his cup. UGH.] It tastes like mud.

[Milk, though? That's some good shit, which is why he stretches out to grab that particular carafe.]

This is better.

Maybe your tastebuds are just muddy. [Ren says that with an almost saccharine cheerfulness, just before he takes another sip of his coffee with absolutely no visible reaction to the bitterness. He'd only be complaining if it was instant coffee, honestly, which thankfully probably doesn't exist here.

He smiles a bit innocently as Lalli picks up the milk.] Oh, that makes sense. If your tastebuds haven't grown up yet then I guess you would like that better...

[It's said absent-mindedly, as if it's a train of thought that anyone could happen across. Ren might like to stir people, but at least he's subtle about it.]

[Lalli's first thought: Tastebuds can't be muddy, which is why he shoots Ren a weird look as he—you guessed it!—fills his mug with milk. This person is confusing? Like, Lalli barely understands social cues at the best of times, but figuring out what's going on here is nigh impossible. How frustrating...]

Everyone drinks milk. [In... post-apocalyptic Finland, but. Listen as he leans forward.] No one drinks coffee? Except for weird foreign people.

[Swedes? Danes? Icelanders? And wherever YOU'RE from, my dude.]

[That gets a decidedly doubtful hum out of Ren.] Coffee's been really popular in every country I've been to, so I don't know where you're getting that from...even if some people just drink it to keep themselves awake, they're still drinking it, right?

[On that note, he leans forward a bit towards Lalli in turn as he takes another sip of his coffee. And possibly blows some of the scent towards him while he's blowing off the steam a little, so it's questionable how intentional it was.] Milk is fine with other things, but drinking it by itself all the time is kind of weird.

[He's getting that Totally True Fact™ from a) observing the people around him and b) drawing accurate conclusions, but before he can even huff about this—um? Um?? Coffee... smells every bit as bad as it tastes, which is why he sits back in a hurry.

And scowls, of course. Definitely scowls, because this guy...]

You're weird. [Enjoy his very mature comeback as he furiously swipes at his nose. Yuck, yuck, yuck...] And you've never been to Finland, so you don't know anything.

[He can TELL.]

Oh, you are from Earth... [He was starting to wonder, what with the insistence about coffee not really being a thing. Lalli's not wrong about him not having been to Finland, though, and he shrugs a little as he sets his mug down again.]

Well, no, but I've been to a lot of other countries. If we're being biased because of where we come from, I could just say you don't know anything either because you've never been to Japan, right?

[It's not exactly the ace in the hole of logic, but then again, that seems to be how the conversation is going in general. Ren's happy enough to roll with it.]

[With the coffee fumes finally cleansed, Lalli picks up his mug of milk—and quietly snorts. Like, obviously Earth is a Thing; he's seen a globe one (1) time, thanks, but as to the rest of this nonsense...]

Why would I know anything about that place? It's not real. [A sip of his milk, then, before he tacks on a very mature—] Stupid.

[That makes Ren pause, though it's decidedly not at the insult, considering his expression is now leaning more towards that of someone suddenly rather worried about Lalli's wellbeing and/or sanity.]

So what countries do you think are real, then...? [Lalli's been insistent enough about his own opinion so far that he can't imagine he'll have too much trouble getting an answer, so he might as well figure out what he's talking about a bit.]

[People give him these looks all the time, man. He doesn't enjoy when people stare at him, but he's not, like, particularly concerned about this other person's opinion? Especially not when he's asked such an obvious question. Like...?]

The ones that exist.

[Obviously! He'll just nonchalantly take another sip of milk, thanks.]

[That gets something more of a pitying look out of Ren, though there's something amused about it as well.]

Japan exists in my version of Earth, so you're going to have to be a little more specific...or are you scared someone's going to be able to argue with you properly if you give them more information...?

[He doubts everyone here is from Earth, but there's enough normal-looking humans that he'd at least say a decent proportion of them are from some form of it. Enough that "your country doesn't exist" might incense a few people if there's those kinds of hotheads here.]

[Is he scared? Wow! He places his mug of milk back on table a bit more roughly than he probably should, because listen!! He's not a scholar, or a skald, but he knows some things.]

Why would I be scared? [TCH!] Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland - they're real countries. Everything else is gone! Silent.

[Nailed it. And that certainly explains a whole lot more about the situation - he blinks briefly at how few countries that is out of the Earth he knows.]

That's such a tiny part of the world to be all that's left... [He says that in a musing sort of tone, taking another sip of his coffee.] Everything else still exists on the Earth I come from, so those countries are only a really small part of the world. Though it's kind of silly to act like something could never exist at all just because it's gone for you...

event: a gentle explosion

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