⇨ The Tourist Trap: WEEK 3

[ringleaders]

Who: Anyone, anywhere in Portland.
When: October 15st - 22th, 2017
Where: Still in Portland
What: As all sides of the struggle gradually become informed, and the awareness of outsiders begins to spread, Portland faces a critical question - what should be done with them? And who gets to decide?
Warnings: Individually marked!

THE WOLVES AMONG US↴ ► WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS: It's fairly common knowledge that October is a special month - Halloween has always been an excitable time in the supernatural community, because its during this month that the magical energies of Earth seem to disproportionately swell in power. This peeks on the 31st, and has every year for as long as anyone can remember. The holiday of Halloween is a byproduct of this, because the magical phenomenon has gone on for ages past. It's also a pretty common time for wizards to attempt bullshit shenanigans, and also when the Severing first came into effect. ► TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL: Towards the end of the week, Prudence Jaeger will be asking her angelic contacts for a pretty huge favour - she wants them to help her and some of her associates break into the Circle stronghold that the visiting Council members are staying at. It seems that they have some kind of macguffin item that will be needed to crack the barrier cutting off the Earth from the cosmos - and, to that end, allow the angels and mysterious outsiders to return to wherever they call home. ► THE PATH TO HELL: Perhaps unsurprisingly, Team Heaven isn't the only group to clue into the fact that the Circle has what they need. On the same night that the angels go in, so will Anath's army, as the arch demon finally arrives in the city just in time to join the party. Whether the angels and demons fight each other all the way or cooperate to achieve a mutual goal is up to them. ► WITH GOOD INTENTIONS: The Circle and Torchlight aren't all bad, okay? It's entirely possible that they are just acting in the best interest of humanity - unfortunately, that has resulted in them being pretty massive pricks recently, and now the payback for that is arriving on their doorstep. If you're a member of the Circle, you may or may not realize that anything is coming in time for you to prepare. (That will depend on your threads up to the end of the week.) However, once the fight starts, you'll be charge with defending the Councillors whether you like it or not, and Torchlight is getting pulled in as an unexpected ally to ensure their safety as well. Are you going to heed their call? Or is it time to split from the pack? ► BLOOD OF ICE AND FIRE: It's been made no secret that the Rose Queen isn't the only fae trying to pull back her lost changelings - now the Winter Court appears to be doing it, as well. More than a handful of changelings have gone missing over the last couple weeks, lost to both the thorns and agents of the Count. Whatever they're doing, it's also in competition with each other - Winter and Summer will be biting at each other's heels far more than normal, to the degree that it becomes clear they must have some competing objective in mind. Unfortunately for everyone else, that objective happens to conflict with the desires of just about everyone else. Fae are, by nature, opportunists. - ✪ - These are the major conflicts that will be coming to a head towards the end of Week 3. In the meantime, your actions will decide how certain elements are set up, and what the likelihood of success is for each group. Dice rolling handily won the opinion poll where we asked for the preferred method of conflict resolution, so that will be coming into effect a bit later on to determine who actually wins and loses, with advantages based on the choices made.

Comments

Works great!

[insidescoop]

[Carly stares at a number of messages for some time after she gets it, late in the evening of the day she finally realizes she can't just shut the whole world out, especially since even dying would just end in her being in a demon's claws again.

...She hesitates to reply, when one comes in after she's already given herself away to the very thing she'd done that ritual to prevent. Her blood feels cold, but eventually...]

Yes.

[And, after another moment...]

I didn't think I'd get a message from you, after that though.

[whattaprick]

[ The response is frank and blunt as can be expected: ]

If I can help it, I never want to see you again.

[ Probably not the most compelling thing to lead with. Yet, immediately after: ]

But you're also one of the only people around who seem to have a clue. Talking to you could help both of us.

[fortuneglass]

[Well, that's certainly telling her plenty. To be fair, she supposes, right now she's surrounded by demons and potentially having tea with one in particular.

But...

...She steels herself.] ...Don't be a hypocrite. If you don't want to see me, you don't want to help me, I'm sure.

[whattaprick]

[ Certainly, he never thought he'd be talking to her again, but ... he doesn't have the moral high ground right now. After all, he's already killed someone himself. In self-defense, perhaps, but these are the times they live in, now... ]

No, but I'm interested in helping myself. I'm proposing a trade of information. That's all.

[insidescoop]

[She certainly doesn't have the high ground either, she feels, and talking to him merely makes her feel that more and more.]

You first then.

[She's not going to spill all that she knows when she's being approached like 'this'.]

[whattaprick]

[ There's information that Lambert thinks is absolutely important: more than memories, more than where he might really come from. Something that could affect all of them, regardless of what side they're on. Perhaps it's stupid, telling her this much, but hell, half of it is just his own conjecture anyway: ]

All right. You've heard about the Severing, haven't you? It's a spell human mages cast, and it's cut off all supernatural creatures from wherever they came from for the past 25 years.

It was supposed to protect this world from being invaded by Arcadia. But I've got reason to believe that right now, the Severing is killing it.

[insidescoop]

Of course I have!

[Little hard to ignore it Lambert!!] And Arcadia is?

[...Right, some information on herself, she supposes.]

...A few years ago, I made a deal with a demon to help me save someone. I'm a 'warlock' now, so avoiding the magical community is tricky.

[There, he can piece dots together on..whatever but anyway.] So the severing is killing the world?

Then someone needs to break it.

[whattaprick]

Another world. The one the Faerie courts here originally came from, I think.

[ He's a little caught by surprise by the explanation, since he hadn't expected that much personal information ... but the deal with the demon does explain a lot. ]

I can imagine.

I agree about breaking that spell, but I don't think it's that simple. I don't know anything about how the spell was constructed, or how it actually works, and I'm not a mage. But it's hard to imagine you could just undo a spell that's been running for the past twenty-five years without consequences.

[fortuneglass]

[Alright, so Faerie. That makes sense. Problem-]

Faerie here are already causing trouble with the barrier.

I can't say that I know more about how to break the barrier but...

...I found others who are trying to break it, right now. [Others that made killing that man completely pointless, a nasty part of her that isn't even demonic mutters to her mind.]

Even with consequences, would it be worse than killing the planet?

[whattaprick]

I don't know.

[ Lambert answers, honestly. ]

Apparently, the barrier wouldn't have kept them out for more than a generation anyway. Maybe they could have come up with something different by then, but who knows what the mages were thinking when they cast it in the first place? Maybe they were desperate enough to think dying on their own terms was better than living on someone else's. Or maybe they didn't realize what was going to happen.

Either way, it can't stay like this.

[fortuneglass]

[Hmmm. Well, in that case, she texts back something rather simple.]

I guess it's a good thing then, that even the demons want it cone.

I wish I knew that earlier [She ends up typing, the message sending before she can erase it.]

[whattaprick]

[ He's pretty sure she didn't mean to send that. He pauses for a moment, considering if he even wants to acknowledge it, but then ... ]

Can't change the past. Can still change the future, so long as it hasn't happened yet.

The demons are planning to destroy the spell? How?

[insidescoop]

Something the Circle has that was used to make the barrier.

They take it, and using a catalyst-not a sacrifice, a catalyst, so someone more like them-and reverse the magic.

[Or. Something she's not entirely sure how all of this goes down.]

[whattaprick]

[ Okay, he may not be a mage, but... ]

Sounds risky. It's a big spell -- wouldn't that require a ritual, or something?

[insidescoop]

Not one that involves death if that's what you're worried about!!

[DEFENSIVE...]

[whattaprick]

[ In truth, it hadn't even crossed his mind, but -- ]

Was that what you were trying to do?

[fortuneglass]

No.

You don't need to know what that was.

[whattaprick]

Fine.
Anyway, this thing the Circle has -- do you have any idea what it is?

[insidescoop]

None.

I just know it's the object they used to create the original barrier.

[whattaprick]

[ Why can't we just break that, then, Lambert types, but as soon as he does, he gets an uneasy feeling staring at his screen. Erase, start again. ]

Will they even be able to recognize it, then? Might make it a bit difficult to take if they can't.

[insidescoop]

Apparently it'll be the only thing in its spot so it should be fine.

[whattaprick]

That's really suspiciously convenient, but all right.

Anyway, that's all I know for now.

[insidescoop]

Well think about it! It's a spell that's constantly working, so obviously it's not just going to be sitting on a shelf with other things!

[whattaprick]

That also means it's going to be pretty heavily guarded, isn't it? You sure you can get in there?

[insidescoop]

It is, but they won't be expecting us either! And we have a plan!