⇨ EDEN

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 79 - Day 85
Where: Eden
What: Everyone arrives in Eden with their new animals forms - unfortunately, the welcoming party is a bit more intense than expected, with a ritual called 'The Anointment.' Better get this place figured out before anything gets any crazier.
Warnings: Hopefully no ritual sacrifice!

FLAME OF INSPIRATION↴ So it begins. After everyone has been given their new animal form and have had about an hour to readjust to it, the Ringmaster begins the infiltration. You don't see a lot of the specifics of the magic - all you know is that Pru's sword, the Hand of God, is somehow involved. It alone can tear through the wardings of Eden's realm, and once that entrance is made, the teleportation is instant. Everyone will find themselves in an open grassland overlooking a dense forest, with buildings and lights poking up out of the leaves. Behind you, there is a darker place - the barrens, the Ringmaster has explained. It's were the Outcasts are sent after they're banished. You are scattered across the area as if you've been dropped in with nothing. You've been given specific instructions - act as if you have no memory besides the vague life of being an animal. None of you know each other. You don't know how you got here, you've just been suddenly found yourself enlightened. Hopefully feigning ignorance will be what the residents are expecting, as what information the Ringmaster could find suggests it should be. Before the beasts of Eden come to claim you, you'll see the Ringmaster once last time, in the form of a giant serpent. With a nod of her head, she slithers away towards the barrens - she'll be in touch. ► THE WELCOMING: It's not long until you're discovered. The first to find you is a pigeon, who seems rather surprised. She'll ask the first few new arrivals she sees a couple questions - 'did you just get here?' 'did you meet the great Lilith?' Regardless of your answers, she'll hurriedly say she's going to go get help, and will fly away back into the forest. A short while later, an entire welcoming party of different animals will have come to greet you, sweeping out to find every straggler and explaining that you are the newest of the chosen. After they are sure that nobody is being left behind, they will invite you into Eden. ► THE GARDEN: Eden is a beautiful place. Every street, every structure, is surrounded by flowers and vibrant plant life - every bit as idyllic as its mythos would imply. The architecture is ambitious and creative, as if the residents have been perfecting the art for thousands of years, which they almost certainly have. There is the sweet smell of perfumes and incense on the other animals are you are led into the city. This is your home now, the locals will explain. You have been chosen by the Creator to serve Her cause. You will become one of the Honorable, one of Her artisans working towards the Divine Clarity. But first, of course, you must be sanctified. ► THE ANOINTMENT: On that first night, everyone is brought to a vast cathedral, covered in unknowable writings in a shining script. You are brought in through several gorgeous hallways lit with shining crystals and blue flame torches, only to emerge in a great hall built around a circular, sparkling pool of water. There are several braziers around its circumference blazing with fire, with sets of tools hanging out of them, like iron pokers. All of the new arrivals are gathered into the grand hall, and scriptures are read in the background that you can't really make out the specifics of. You will all be made to stand around the outside of the pool, and the local animals will gently explain to you what needs to be done. To become a new Honorable, you must be Anointed with the Flame of Inspiration - that is, they are going to brand you with the metal pokers they have heating up. If you go along with it, they will burn the mark into a highly visible part of your person (they have smaller brands for smaller animals), and then cool it off in the pool of water, where you are encouraged to bask until you are comfortable again. There are obviously a couple concerns with this. The biggest one is that it's sketchy as hell. The second one is that the brand is definitely made of medium grade iron. While the painful difference it makes won't be super obvious from the outside, long-term veterans and those with superlative fae qualities will find it very uncomfortable, and it will blister for a fair while afterward, which is seen as unusual. If your character refuses, or tries to get around it somehow, please explain in reply to the post down below. ► THE DAYS AFTER: After everyone is branded (or isn't, as the case may be), you'll be given the opportunity to dry off and head back into town. All of the fancy structures here are communal, they will explain, and you can choose wherever you'd like to sleep. There are a few buildings that are mostly empty that newbies seem welcome to hole up in, though the locals assure everyone they will be nearby in case they need help. In the days that follow, everyone will be welcome to explore Eden and find their bearings, and begin to discover what gifts the Anointment has bestowed on them. Whether or not you were good at a creative pursuit before, you will find yourself filled with inspiration for something - any artistic talent will do. It's like a creative talent will have been born in you overnight, or like an existing talent of yours has been boosted to near perfection. This effect will last as long as the characters are in Eden unless you are told otherwise. You won't feel the need to eat, but there is breakfast available, if you'd like it. The locals are very courteous, though they seem a bit confused. Something about your entry seems to strike them as different than usual.

Comments

[pipers_son]

Honestly, if Childermass couldn't manage a perfect deadpan even in dog form, it'd be a little worrying. What would they all do without that sort of talent? Also it would probably mean that something was seriously wrong.

Either way, while it doesn't have Joker smiling, exactly, on behalf of beaks not being so malleable as lips, he does sort of duck his head down to look up at Childermass playfully. It's the best he can manage with things as they are. "If that's a challenge, I think I could probably come up with somethin'~." Because that's what Childermass wants, right. This guy getting up in his artistic endeavors. Definitely.

And if not, well, it's too late, because Joker is twisting around to do his best and start nudging his beak through the various tail feathers he has. "Besides, that's quitter talk, innit? It's just, ah, tricks of light and all that, right?" He's pretty sure that's how it works, anyway. Admittedly, he is by no means a technician, or scientist, or scholar of any kind... It's fine.

[pipers_son]

"Maybe." The Ringmaster didn't seem worried about disappearing... but then, she's their boss for a reason, and has eaten at least two different highly powerful supernatural entities. Joker keeps himself calm about it as he lowers his beak down towards the teas. Can birds actually taste things, now that he thinks about it....?

"Still, if there's a kind of danger, it would have been nice ta hear about before we were left ta our own devices. After all, no one wants ta end up another poster, do they?" Carefully, he dips his beak in. He has a tongue, he knows he can do this. Just.... Give him a second- shit he thinks he got some in his nostrils. He pulls back with with a slight shake of his head.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya nods. "I tried asking about them, but everyone told me not to worry. But we weren't warned for anything, either, so I don't really know what I'm not supposed to be worrying about."

He thinks he's pretty obviously new, so he's not sure why it doesn't warrant an explanation... even a 'don't go out to the Barrens, you'll die' or anything like that. It's very strange.

His train of thought is a little derailed, though, as Joker tries to... sniff? Taste? The tea balls.

"... Uh, you don't eat them that way. You put them in water."

[pipers_son]

"....Is that how they work?" He's never tried that before, let him tell you. The world is an amazing thing. Now to see if he can just... manipulate it with his mouth then.

This is fine. He'll figure it out. They're all good.

(Yuya please help your boss.)

While Joker is trying to manipulate the tea ball, however, he speaks around what he manages to get in his beak. "Although, apparently everyone knows where the missin' folks are anyway."

[prazerbutterfly]

"I hear you," is the only confirmation he will give that he understands. There's also the fact that the Mother of Invention is someone that interests him. If she can overcome her weakness to iron then perhaps she could also help him overcome his weakness to Innocence. Tyki's not above using various immoral means to get a job done and her methods aren't exactly anything he would bat an eye at.

He stares down Strange for a while and processes all of this. In these worlds he never had an ounce of control like he did in his world. "Having trouble in paradise?" Not that he hasn't been watching Strange. This time he's been actually avoiding him. Tyki visited often in this worlds. There's been a significant lack of his presence for good reason.

He slides a paw into his hip pack and drops a glass ball on the ground. Lights illuminate from it from the refracted sunlight and metal pieces within along with the carved glass inside. He spins it gently and the leaves designed inside flow like an autumn breeze across the floor.

DOES SHE??

[pipers_son]

"You'll be workin' with me, of course~." He spreads his wings out as he steps a little further in, now that there's no need to worry about accidentally getting set on fire. He knows better than anyone that you give people who mess with flame a wide berth while they're using it. Comes with having a fire-eater brother. "Pesagni!"

But he should probably explain his whole deal, too... So Joker nods his head back to his tail, which is dragging along behind him. "I've been making collages outta my feathers, so far, but I'm thinkin' they could be used for somethin' a little more.... substantial, too!" For example, something that could be worn.

[spaghettimonster]

She gets a little more nodding recognition from Papyrus, as he at least knows spiders make webs; there's plenty of spiders underground. So many that they're practically a micro-nation unto themselves, with a queen of their own, and didn't really come to him for help with anything. There's not much he can offer for guessing at the abilities or motives of the Architects.

"I don't care if they know," Papyrus grumbles, hunching up defensively. "Somebody already knows something, they did this to him."

Though what they know now is a lot less than what they could know. One beetle from a suspicious group of newcomers, doing whatever he did to get singled out, is different from people having the ability to counteract what was done to him.

As Papyrus keeps talking, complaining and rambling to himself, he loses conviction in what he's saying. "Sans is small! He can hide! As long as there aren't any strings... And... he'd be the first one to follow those strings and see what he can find out."

He sighs and looks away. "...I don't know what's best."

[anti_nonsense]

Come on, Nines, don't leave her hanging like that!

The more she thinks about it, the stronger Rita feels about her hunch. But 9S is right; if anything they do here can draw attention to them, it might just happen when they sever that connection, anyway.

"Do it," she says decisively. "Give it a try, and then we can both tackle these threads. We'd better act quickly."

[kingsroads]

"We are." And Strange can't hide the little smile in his voice as he says that. Granted, he and Ignatius have a long way to go before they got to something more than 'tolerating each other', but Strange is confident that they'll reach that eventually.

As Shima crawls inside the piece, Strange understands what he's doing. This place is quiet, relatively out of the way, and nobody can see them. The perfect place to talk secrets. He swoops down towards the ground, landing on the dirt, before following Shima into the art installation itself.

It's only once they're inside that Strange continues talking. "I don't know the specifics of where he was, if that's what you're planning on asking."

time for a punoff

[kingsroads]

Sculptures? Strange still is trying to grasp the pecking order of this place, but thankfully for him, sculptures seem to be in a completely different wheelhouse than his talent: dancing. Which is good, because the idea of trying to collaborate with Lapis makes him want to vomit a little.

"Good," Strange simply responds, with a little nod. "This means we won't have to deal with each other while honing our craft."

[hippocarnival]

Yuya watches Joker struggle with the tea ball, wondering if he should just tie it back in one of the shaping cloths so he can actually carry the thing. Here Yuya thought having paws instead of hands was bad enough.

"They do?" His ear fold sideways briefly. That could mean a couple things. "Like... they know what happened to them?"

[pipers_son]

At least paws have claws attached to them. Joker has talons, sure, but he can't exactly balance and hold things at the same time if he's not actually flying. For now, however, he'll just... persevere as best he can, while still trying to talk at the same time. He might drop this a few times, it's fine.

"They know where they went, at the very least." He pauses to reconsider his method of ball handling. "And there's only one place where yer guaranteed to not be found, at least around here. Right?"

[npcarnival]

As predicted, Ignatius is not particularly pleased with the arrangement of folks that have come out to find him. In fact, he's going to threaten to leave immediately unless they have some particularly good reason to be out there.

Time to make an offer, dudes.

[npcarnival]

If there were any animals close to them, they seem less than willing to indicate it now. Agla seems to be the most well known of the group, having been a figure of significant respect in the city beforehand. She was actually a Scholar before fleeing in the name of Heresy.

Kerubi the arctic fox, another Scholar, will be spotted tearing claw marks across one of the posters bearing Agla's image. She seems pretty furious at having to see it.

[hippocarnival]

Yuya is going to use his status at the biggest animal here to dwarf Rita and Lambert to emphasize they are not here to lead torture round two, and ask Ignatius to wait--they definitely aren't here to hurt him, they just want to talk about what he heard about the mirror.

He'll lower his voice (and head) to whisper and introduce himself as Yuya, just so Ignatius is clear he's not among those who pursued him.

[hippocarnival]

"I... guess?" He assumes Joker means the Barrens, but he remembers what was described about that before and he's a little unsure anyone would willingly go out there--it sounds like they don't exactly maintain their sapience, but maybe that's a better alternative? Why would the Twelve care so much, then?

"So what's up with them?" Joker's implying he knows, right?

[worldlyafflictions]

"Ah, well I mostly wanted an update on him since I haven't had a chance ta chat with him myself since the first time. 'N figured I'd get ya back a little for all the questions I had ta answer about how he was doing before!"

"Was he knocked out the whole time?"

[npcarnival]

Steven is asleep back in the city, and all seems to go according to plan. In fact, they make it a considerable way out into the Barrens without any incident. It's very quiet. Bizarre so, in fact.

The Barrens live up to their namesake. It's a wasteland out there, with barely any vegetation - the occasional ruins of old buildings can be found, like a civilization destroyed in a calamity and left buried beneath thousands of years of neglect. It gets quite cold as the night comes on, and travel is arduous even by wing.

It almost boring, until in the distance... something that just looked like a mountain range begins to move. The coils of some great creature shift, rising into the sky, until a giant serpent looms overhead, staring in your direction.

What now, guys?

[npcarnival]

Ignatius will frankly say that he has no reason to share that information, unless they are prepared to offer something in return. He may not be able to go after the Mirror himself, but that doesn't mean he's obligated to help them.

[kingsroads]

Strange has positioned himself so that he's closer to Ignatius than he is to the rest of the group. When Ignatius mentions the 'offer something in return,' Strange reminds the group that faerie bargains aren't a thing to take lightly: case in point, himself. Think about what you want and how you want to phrase it if you make any offers.

He also points out to Ignatius that since he's the only one in this group who can fly, say the word and he'll pick up Igs and fly them off somewhere if Yuya/Lambert/Rita try to start something or he just doesn't want to talk anymore.

[pipers_son]

Yeah, that's kind of a dead giveaway that someone is more emotionally attached to this than one would normally be.

Joker will get another one of the posters (listen it was too close to another one, it's fine) and come up to Kerubi with it clutched in his beak. Which will make speaking a little tricky but hey it's fine.

He'll offer that she can tear this one up too if she likes since that one is seeming as shredded as it possibly can be, or he can just hang this one up instead, since he feels like a certain elephant would be upset if he saw it torn to shreds, and "Pesagni" wouldn't want anyone to get in trouble.

[soft_focus]

"...Lots of things can see from all kinds of places though, can't they?" she asks, wrinkling her nose. She's definitely pretty sure that's something she'd know by now, and if it wasn't then too bad.

"..I'm not 'out' anywhere. ...I think so, at least." She can't exactly see where the roof ends, and the doorway begins, and so on with ease; she just sort of started fumbling around.

[npcarnival]

Kerubi stares at him. A moment passes.

Suddenly, Joker will find himself dealing with hundreds of spiders crawling all over his body and tail.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita will angrily remind Strange that he's supposed to be on their side, not Ignatius'.

She'll then go ahead and ask the fae a question she's been wondering about for a while: if Ignatius doesn't care to help them get the Mirror, and he's bound by oath not to pursue it himself, then why'd he come along in the first place? What's he trying to accomplish here?

[npcarnival]

"Why the hell would I tell you that?" is his very simple answer. "Did you not just hear what I said? If you want to know what I know, then I'm going to need something in exchange."