⇨ EDEN PT. 3

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: End of Day 88, on to Day 89
Where: Eden
What: The carnival breaks into two groups, as one entertains the Architect Samyaza at her festival, and the other assaults the Cathedral through a secret passageway with the intent of claiming the Silver Mirror and liberating those imprisoned.
Warnings: Ritual sacrifices.

IN GOD'S HANDS↴ Only those left in Eden and remaining undetected will be able to come to Samyaza's festival, which is an increasingly small group. It's also a dangerous proposition - there's no way to know what Samyaza has in store for her visitors, only that she apparently wants to interact with them before allowing the other Architects to act. It could work as an excellent distraction, drawing the eyes of the Architects towards the festival instead of towards the Cathedral while the attempt to claim the Mirror is taking place. For those that arrive in Samyaza's gardens, they are beautiful and well prepared, and music of otherworldly perfection flows through them. Tables are arranged with amazing works of art as their centerpieces, while the trees themselves are made into dazzling displays of color with an effect that seems to turn their leaves into pure light. Samyaza will be presiding, a hare that looks like she's made of something ephemeral, like wind of pure colour. She invites you in kindly, saying that before she speaks, she will honour you with a song... ► THE SET UP: For the first hour or so, the festival will be nothing but celebration. There are other Honorables there, but not as many as usual - the main event are you and the other new arrivals. After the hour mark, Samyaza will perform her song. Until then, threads can be made focusing on the pre-song mingling and planning. Will you listen when she sings? ► THE TWIST: There will be more happening at the festival than Samyaza plans. While she is comfortable waiting to act, other Architects are less patient. ON HOLY GROUND↴ With carnival members (and Ignatius) in enemy hands, there's no more time for hestitation. Based on the information given to her by various carnies, the Ringmaster will meet with the Furies and declare her intent to attack the Cathedral's underground during Samyaza's festival on the evening of Day 88. The Furies will agree, saying that those they have on the inside will use their influence to ensure there are as few Architects and Scholars are blocking their way as possible, but they must all still expect a fight. Furies from the base in the barrens will be coming along with this raid group, using what information they have to speed transit through the underground tunnels. They only ask two things - that after the Mirror is collected, it be used to save the lives of Hasma and the other captured Furies, before being used to repair the mind of the Serpent herself. ► THE SET UP: The Ringmaster will lead the way into the secret ruins that Childermass and the other found - the main difference is that she will smash right through the cracked wall defending the depths of the Cathedral, clearing the path entirely with her now serpentine body. Her plan is this - to draw the attention of the Architects to the surface by taking on the appearance if the Serpent, while carnival members and assisting Furies search the tunnels below to find the Mirror and the captives. ► THE TWIST: The people captured by the Twelve and imprisoned in the garden (AKA characters on the TDM) will be found, but the carnival members won't be. At least, not in the same place as the other captives. A megathread will go up for the group that goes to capture the Mirror, but you are free to NPC and thread confrontations will Scholars that are protecting the underground prison and the chambers where the Twelve held their meetings. Please report any Scholars that are killed or seriously harmed to the mods. Lambert will be leading the part of the group heading towards the Mirror, while Sans will head the group searching the tunnels for captives. Now is the time to let loose and use all your powers. It's probably best to keep your disguise to catch people off guard, but it is no longer necessary. New characters will be directed to post here once accepted.

Comments

⇨ INVESTIGATION THREADS

[ringleaders]

Below are prompts with specific investigation-based hooks. Some prompts may go up as hooks for specific characters, who may reply as they see fit, but if you find something you'd like to investigate, please make a post here explaining what your character is doing to find out info. All investigation threads will be done in summary form as opposed to going tag by tag.

DON'T BE VAGUE. If you are having your character investigate something, you must explain what your character is specifically doing to find out information. Don't just say "I investigate the Twelve." You have to be more specific, by saying what your character is doing, such as "My character is going to ask the Honorables that brought everyone in who the Twelve are." The more specific you are, the better info you will get in return.

You can also confront NPCs by this method, and you'll get summary posts in return explaining how the situation will unfold based on your actions. Investigation is important for this plot! Various boons and advantages will be given out for characters who make a difference.

Please restrict all investigation actions to one or two actions at a time. Please don't give me a laundry list of the five different things your character is doing, because it makes everything too time-consuming to get through. Stick to one main thing your character is looking into per tag.

[kingsroads]

Rita told Strange about the cavern the Twelve met in with the reflective ceiling that Acquisitions managed to get a peek at. Sometime before/during the party, Strange is going to try and find it via the reflections and the Silver Mirror. Can he find that chamber in the first place? And is there anything super noticeable/bad news about it?

[ringleaders]

He can appear in the ceiling mirror, yes.

When is he doing this, though? It makes a difference.

[whattaprick]

Lambert has a few questions for their new allies before they start off. Whoever’s been tasked with accompanying the heist team will be asked:

1. Can they direct them to where the mirror is being kept/how to get there? They have some theories, but navigating will go more quickly with someone experienced with the layout.

2. What kinds of defenses should they prepare for?

3. Do they know of the trees growing off the mirror? How are they related, and do they have any idea if it will make retrieval harder?

[ringleaders]

1. Agla says that based on her own experience, and based on the intel they have from inside agents, that there is a big mirror portal on the roof of the Twelve's meeting room. There's kind of a mental trick to it, but you basically have to look into it and then will yourself to become your reflection, which will teleport you into the Mirror chamber. The biggest challenge is that there is basically always at least one member of the Twelve in either room, and usually more than that.

The Architects supporting them have extended their influence to try to keep those numbers to a minimum during the heist, but there are good odds they'll have to confront at least one hostile Architect.

2. Armaros may have set up defensive webs, and any number of the Architects could have done something with their powers, but that hard to predict. Info suggests it will likely be webs or tech from the Stingray, though. Bezaliel's shadow magic is also a constant problem.

3. The trees are powered by the magic of the Mirror and that's all the Twelve really know about them

Rescue cave

[hippocarnival]

Once the rescue team is down the cave, Yuya's going to (literally and figuratively) sniff around for signs of people in trouble--namely carny members. He'll try not to wander too far from the rest of the group, unless there's something particularly demanding of his attention.

[npcarnival]

Yuya won't find the other carnival members, but with time, they will find and enter a room that is filled with large stone cubes. Each one is about seven feet by seven feet. They don't appear to have entrances or exits...

Except for a thin crack at the base of one side, as if a garage door has been slid upwards just slightly before stopping. It's dark inside of the box, but it's hollow.

The air inside smells familiar.

⇨ IN GOD'S HANDS (FESTIVAL)

[ringleaders]

⇨ SAMYAZA'S SONG (INDIVIDUAL THREADS)

[npcarnival]

It's about an hour into the festival, and the time for Samyaza's promised performance has come. There is a stage area set up, where other musicians have played, with waterfalls framing it from each side, and a canopy of beautiful flowers overhead.

While larger than a normal hare, Samyaza is still only the size of a large cat. She floats to the stage, her ears spread like wings. Her fur constantly shifts as if it's made of the wind itself.

There is no background music, as she begins. The only music is her voice, and the sounds of everything else around her are dulled in comparison. In the silence, she begins to sing.

The voice doesn't seem like anything that should come out of a rabbit, but none the less, that is what you hear. More importantly, if you allow yourself to listen, something about it will beckon to you. Invite you. Ask you to open yourself to it, so that it can impart its message.

You can fight it, if you want. Or, you can listen to its call. Reply to this thread only if you are choosing to listen - everyone else can assume they are successfully blocking out the sound.

[soft_focus]

Reira does not merely go to listen to Samyaza- she goes to the partt and waits eagerly for it. She has not been ignorant to absolutely everything around her- being empathetic to anyone in range means she has more than caught the growing panic in other carnival members, the anxiety and unease from other honorables.

But Reira wants badly for Samyaza to have good intentions, and what Reira wants she defends desperately. So despite the unease from her fellows she greets the party with nothing but excitement, grins, and even adoration.

Samyaza is the one who gave her a name after all, a name from her heart and soul according to others, a name that can therefore only mean something good and dear. To see that the hare so immediately reflects two of the four affinities in her heart on top of that only endears Reira to her presence and voice more; and she comes as close to the stage and Samyaza herself as she can possibly be allowed. It feels fated, she thinks- that she be granted a form overseen by the hare.

She opens her heart and ears to the song and to the Hare in such a way that only the most trusted would be allowed, and she listens.

[starseedling]

Steven has been anxiously awaiting this moment, having been pondering the idea of Samyaza's performance since the moment it was first mentioned. He knew she was musical - it had been commented on more than enough in the Honorable circles he'd been frequenting. Sadly, his last experience with magical singing wasn't really a good one.

Yet, he can't help but feel like there must be more to this than another trick. Samyaza was the one who wanted to delay before doing anything rash... maybe her intentions are good?

What it comes down to, ultimately, is that Steven is a sucker for music from the heart - and with the amplified feelings that his empathy draws in, when the moment comes, he can't help but let the music in. He really wants it to be good.

Steven stares at Samyaza as she sings, clearly zoning out, his ears lifted in rapt attention. His tail twitches behind him as his thoughts go somewhere else completely.

[amphibiopathic]

Having not been on any of the Carnival's more recent misadventures, and despite her own nervousness, Eruka finds herself listening to the song. At first, it's mostly to look like she's being attentive and appreciative of the party that's allegedly in their honor -- it's uncomfortably obvious how sparse the attendance from the new Honorables is -- but before she realizes it, she's caught up in the song.

Willpower has never terribly been Eruka's strong suit, unless it's a matter of her terror of one thing helping her overcome her fear of another. So there's a dazed frog swaying to the music, straining to listen for what it's trying to say.

[flashover]

The party, thus-far, had actually been pretty relaxing! "Ouri" has spent most of the evening staring at the various food art (how the heck did they get that watermelon peacock's wings to flap?!). When the hare Architect takes the stage, though, she gets the secretary bird's attention.

She's beautiful to look at, and her aura is... kind. Soft. And she's just so cute! He's nervous about the whole thing -- after all, the last time magical music was a thing, it wasn't a good thing. But maybe she was one of the Architects sympathetic to the Furies?

Her voice is just as beautiful as she is adorable, and Rin finds himself (perhaps against his better judgement) leaning into the sound and letting it envelop him.

[fourthscribe]

Tanyuu is wary, of course. After what happened at the last few concerts she's attended it feels like an ill omen, but from what the others overheard...part of her wonders if the hare might not be sympathetic, less blindly loyal to Lilith's cause. So while she has been on guard at the party, it's only to a certain degree.

When her song begins...she resists, at first. The tug to give in to the music, to let the notes sink into her mind is too familiar in ways she still hasn't come fully to grips with yet. But it's not the mindless dark of the void, and despite her better judgement...

She listens.

⇨ BEZALIEL'S SHADOW (MEGATHREAD)

[npcarnival]

A short while into Samyaza's performance, a darkness is cast over the area, circling it in black. At first it seems like only a trick of the light, but then it seems like something much worse.

The Honorables present obviously notice what's going on, going as far as to look away from Samyaza's performance and gasp in surprise. A few of them run towards the edge of the shadow before backing away again, as if something has warded them off.

Samyaza's note cuts off as a pillow of darkness separates from the black - atop of it is a massive bear, with white outlines and shadows like a negative image standing out against the shade. Samyaza lets out an indignant little shriek.

"Bezaliel!" she shouts, scolding. "I didn't ask you to come here! This is my garden!"

"It is all of ours," Bezaliel growls, stepping forward and curling his claws over the edge of his pillar. "And we've all been patient enough. I've given you what you wanted. The ones that remain are gathered together... and the others will be found in time."

"I had my own plan, if you could just... ugh! You big... dummy!"

[soft_focus]

When the music cuts short, Reira's mood crumbles with it. From beside Herbert, she had been just about to run. But instead, she hurriedly hisses- "We need something that reflects-!", turning her head to the shadow bear. Being as close to the performance as she could have been, and being as tiny as she is, seeing a Massive bear is utterly terrifying right now.

She rather wishes she could hide behind, or even under, Samyaza right now.

Maybe she'd feel a little safer. For now, she shrinks, huddling and keeping her eyes upon them both.

⇨ BEHIND THE WATERFALL (IGNATIUS, HERBERT, STRANGE-IN-A-PLATE, AND TADPOLE JACKSON)

[scientificist]

Meanwhile, back on a giant tadpole, Herbert shudders and reflexively flexes his claws in deeper as they pass swiftly through the waterfall and into the thick, cloying shadow. (Sorry, Jackson.) Can he breathe? Does he breathe shadow? It feels like it fills him up anyway, cold inside his nose and throat, into his lungs. Into his head.

There isn't much for it to attach to at first, sticky though the darkness is. Herbert is truly confident, almost obscenely. He truly believes in his genius, in how he is, that everything that goes wrong is due to some fault of others or the Universe rather than himself.

But then, of course, it reaches his soul, Void-touched as it is. And suddenly, Herbert is actually struggling. Predominately against the feeling that this entire venture is a waste of time. Why does he bother with his job? Why did he bother coming in as a cat at all when there is pure science and the destruction of everything?

It's... Fine, he will admit. This was a waste of his time. He was here when he could have been developing his reagent. But it hasn't been a total wash: he's come up with some new ideas vis the applicability of his serum. Besides, he's already been through this. There's no point in the destruction of reality before he's finished exploring everything about it. All of that can happen later. Right now he's busy with his work!

And then he's through, staring at rock instead of nothingness. He's...still soaking wet, so hopefully that only felt long, instead of actually being hours in the shadow while the others presumably got shredded apart by Bezaliel at the remains of the party. They all have eggs, though, so, it ought to be fine.

"Aaare--" goes Herbert and then coughs, his teeth clenching into the plate. His throat still feels tight after his bout with the barrier. "Strange. Are you, still there?"

[npcarnival]

At some point after entering the wall of shadow, Ignatius screams. It's impossible to tell what about, in the darkness, but it's something more vulnerable and deep seated than any of them will have heard from him, up to this point.

He falls silent again not long after. By the time they make it out the other side, Ignatius is ostensibly conscious but looks practically dead inside, unresponsive to stimulus and just staring off into space. He looks completely awful, and his ashy blood is soaking all through his white garb and down Jackson's side.

⇨ ON HOLY GROUND (HEIST)

[ringleaders]

pluto, new arrival dropping in!

[krunmacula]

The animals are restless.

She doesn't quite know what that means, and she just hates that! But she's managed to put this much together, at least: something is different. There's an air of tension (she thinks?) and suddenly each glance she catches from one of her captors means something entirely new. She acts no differently, of course; she gives each of them the same fond smiles and waves she'd give anyone else. Just because they've kidnapped her doesn't mean they're not worth all the love she can give!

That perfect, unbreakable facade lasts far longer than it has any right to. There's a rumbling sound- no, a feeling, under her feet and far in the distance, and everything threatens to fall apart. Hope flashes across her face, and she can see alarm clear and present in the animals', and it's all she can do to stop herself from running for it there and then.

She just needs to be patient. She just needs to wait this out a little longer. Soon, something will change - for better or for worse.

⇨ LILITH'S IMPERFECTION (MEGATHREAD)

[npcarnival]

Those searching for the Mirror once again arrive at the meeting room of the Twelve. They've had to fight off a few Scholars along the way, but through a combination of forces have made it past - how they choose to approach now may change from outright violence, however.

The room appears to be empty, all except for a single inhabitant: Penemue the raven. He sits on a pedestal near the speaking platform, staring away from the entrance. His feathers ruffle occasionally, but he doesn't seem to be paying much attention.

Dark, a new arrival to yell at you!

[apaintingdarkly]

To say that Dark has had enough of this place is a vast understatement. He's the phantom thief. He does the stealing. He doesn't get stolen. It's infuriating.

When the atmosphere begins to change he finds a nice vantage point hidden in the foliage of a tree and waits, fully intending to catch the first stranger he sees by surprise.

⇨ UNDER HOLY GROUND (RESCUER MEGATHREAD)

[osteothropy]

So, hello! Maybe you've just joined the party. Maybe you've just gotten rescued by some weird animal you've never met before, and broken out of that garden prison. Lucky for you, after you get out into the tunnels with your new rescuers, there is a point of guidance.

Unfortunately, that guidance is a scary looking skeleton dog.

For those in the know, they will recogize one of Warden Sans's three skeleton dog familiars coming to find them after their successful caper. They will chase you down and bark for your attention, basically being a pest until they get you to follow them. Once you've done so, you'll eventually be reacquainted with a much larger skeleton - scorpion - wolf: AKA, Sans's scary monster form he takes on every so often.

He's waiting for you to arrive, hunkered down, with some knocked out Scholars nearby. He looks over the new arrivals, for a moment, before rumbling out an unnecessarily intimidating:

"Hi there."

haruhi, new arrival ready for action!

[naturalsakura]

Haruhi is a lot more on guard than usual. Mostly because she's already discovered a set schedule of what the animals do and when they come through. And just now, with the help of the internal clock she created for herself, did she realized that some of the usual animals were arriving early and the others late. Something definitely was happening but she just didn't know what.

And then everything really seems to pick up and Haruhi looks around, slightly alarmed but still on her guard. But she was also hopeful. Maybe this would be a good chance for escape!

[stompadour]

Boy howdy does it ever pick up. If Jasper's here that means it's gotten fighty -- which means Haruhi will probably see a fair bit of the large draught horse headbutting animals, chasing them around and generally making a commotion, before things let up for long enough for Jasper to spot her and approach her.

She frowns down at Haruhi with what are frankly kind of alarmingly feline yellow eyes, for a horse. Not one the Carnival members they were looking for, but clearly this human doesn't belong in Eden.

"You want out of here, right?" she grunts. "Get on."