lostcarnival | ⇨ EDEN PT. 3

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⇨ EDEN PT. 3

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tanyuu looks at all the chaos nervously--there's so little she can do right now, and even helping Ginko and Hinawa wouldn't work very well. She doesn't have the right skull for that, she thinks. She can't do anything to break the chains, all she can do is cushion and--

Wait!

Sending her magic into the plants once more, she encourages the vines to grow up as thickly as she can manage, reaching up to support the prisoners and lessen the pain of hanging by their wrists. She pays special attention to the vines reaching to Ignatius, ready to re-grow and heal them if contact sets them aflame.

With efforts to break the iron chains proving less effective than they hoped, Shima directs Yamantaka to redouble his efforts on the pillars themselves, where the chains are anchored. It won't be as fast for saving multiple targets quickly but Yamantaka focuses his considerable strength on crushing the shadowy substance with his many fists.

Urgh...! Damn cheating bear. With Eruka safely back on the ground, Rin swoops back upwards. In theory, he should be able to break iron chains. Iron wasn't the toughest material! But... he knew it was going to hurt to touch it.

He has to try.

He swoops over to Yugo, who has the fewest chains of all the captives. He lands on his shoulder and chirps and whistles sympathetically.

"Hey, are you still awake? I'm going to try and break these chains...!"

He hesitates, looking at the iron bindings and remembering how much the brand had hurt. But maybe... as long as he was relying on his demon powers, he could do something... right?

With a grimace, he grabs hold of the chain in his powerful talons. The iron burns even the thick scales on the bottoms of his feet, designed to withstand the bites of angry snakes, but he holds on. He cloaks his talons in blue flame, this time aiming to heat up the metal and make it more pliable. He makes sure to do it as far away from Yugo as possible, keeping the heat localized.

Rin goes for the chains, but the burn against his feet seems to render him incapable of enacting much force on them - there's clearly something magical about it, beyond just pain tolerance. Thankfully, Yamantaka's indirect approach seems to be working.

In the same moment that Hinawa and Ginko collide with the base of Ignatius's pillar, Yamantaka fucking unloads on it. The shadow itself shatters and begins to discorporate - therefore meaning there is not much holding Ignatius in the air, as it crumbles away, besides Tanyuu's plants desperately growing below and... Otama Jackson!

With some quick maneuvering, the giant tadpole will be able to catch both Ignatius and Eruka, which is a good thing because Ignatius looks like he's on his last legs. So much so that without support he'll end up sliding right off of Jackson's body and hitting the ground below.

Meanwhile, Bezaliel is growing less patient. Smoky Quartz, in particular, is really getting on his nerves - he lifts his paws and bellows, leaping forward to drive his claws in deep. It may not be an ending blow, but with those iron claws it will almost certainly be a severe wound, his jaw attempting to lock around the big cat as well.

It's only as all this chaos is happening that Samyaza will speak to Reira, staring at the fight up above.

"Nothing," she says, softly. She sounds remorseful and uneasy.

There's a bit of resistance to the shadow, but it seems like he can push his way through. Yet, as he does, there is a deep an shaking feeling in his gut, as if all the things he tries to push out of his mind are simultaneously rising to the surface. Does he keep going?

Reira is quiet, and Reira is careful. She continues to speak in whispers, staying as carefully close and hidden as she can. "Why can't you help these ones leave then," she asks, referring to the Honorables with Samyaza, "...If you won't be in trouble?"

She continues. "...They're scared... ...If someone helped them leave, would they get in trouble? If someone broke the shadows for them..." What breaks shadows anyway? She'd ask, but she's more worried about all of the fear she's hiding beside. Those from the Carnival at least, they signed up for this in a way. They know what's coming, know what must be done.

It's not fair, she thinks.

She thinks the Honorables at least should be allowed to run away.

As Strange hears the thud of Ignatius falling the ground and sees him fall out of the corner of his vision, he panics. He can't fully see what's going on and is absolutely terrified and fearing the worst.

"Give him that mirror!" Strange yells vaguely in Reira's direction, not every trying to hide the panic in his voice and forgetting in his panic that technically it's a mirrored plate, not an actual mirror. "I need to see Ignatius, give him that mirror!"

And then Strange returns back to the void of the Silver Mirror itself. He's certain that this is a futile effort. But once again, he tries his hardest to reach out with all his magic and get out of this damn Mirror.

Eruka screams as the shadow beneath them suddenly gives way -- but a bounce and a familiar yelp of distress signal their sudden landing on Otama Jackson, who sad to say is already pretty used to this sort of horribly violent impact.

"Hold on to him!" Eruka cries out, when she starts to feel his body sliding off. The giant tadpole complies, tail curling up to hold Ignatius steady on his back instead of just letting him slide right off to hit the ground. Leaving Eruka perched on a near-unconscious fae on top of a giant floating tadpole, yelling and explosions and all the rest happening around her.

"Get him away from here!" she orders the tadpole, frantically, urging him towards the direction of where she thought she saw the waterfall last before hopping off. As for the others... she looks up at the three remaining on their pillars, two of them more familiar to her than the fae, and makes a hasty decision: chanting frantically, she generates more bombs, though instead of exploding instantly these just float in the air, grinning menacingly.

It's good to know that, at the very least, you can pass through the barrier if you don't mind feeling awful. Herbert doesn't see a particular reason to push his way out and go running alone through a presumably hostile animal city at the moment, so he abstains for the moment.

Additionally, with Reira's talk about the hare Architect being good and on their side despite obviously trying to mesmerise the Carnival party attendees and calling it her 'plan', he really should have expected she'd immediately run over to her. Troubling, but there's not much he can do about that either, at the moment.

So all there is is Strange wanting to talk with the fae he has Stockholm Syndrome for, who is probably unconscious anyway and is on an enormous tadpole beginning to speed in Herbert's direction for some reason. He supposes he ought to take a stab at helping Ignatius anyway, being the Doctor and all.

Running back to the table, he pulls the plate out of the art piece he ruined for that brief purpose, jams it in his mouth (being a cat is really inconvenient) and leaps for the tadpole coming towards him from the table, attempting to land beside Ignatius.

Of course, he undershoots, and lands heavily beside it as it industriously keeps floating along. He should have practised more instead of getting distracted by pointless art! although to give himself credit, he's never had to jump with a heavy metal plate in his mouth before. This is really a lot of effort to be putting into doing his job, he thinks, and Strange really doesn't deserve him making it more difficult for himself to do him a favour.

But fine, he makes another run at the tadpole and leaps again before it's out of his reach....and this time, he manages to latch onto the back with his claws. He can't be absolutely certain where it's going, but he assumes it must be stopping eventually?

He can't see what's happening, he's not only blocked by the tadpole but keeping the plate in his mouth has flipped his chin up flat against it and he's staring up along the slope of its back.

That sure is a lot of Bear, and it's not long enough Smoky's luck runs out. Their attempts to distract make their movements more careless, and in the end that bites them - the cords connecting their weapons give Bezaliel leverage to step on them and move forward, digging his claws into their gut and slashing upwards, barely missing the gems and piercing the light of their body.

Yet, somehow they can't break into parts like they usually would under such force. Their body won't discorporate, which just means that Bezaliel manages to lock them into a deadly bear hug and sink his fangs into their shoulder.

Smoky yelps with pain they haven't actually personally experience in their short time existing, the Ringmaster's enchantment unwinding and revealing their true form. Their wings flap wildly, trying to get away.

Yeah. Maybe this was their bad for thinking they could do something like this in the first place.

With Smokey taking a significant blow, Shima has to change targets. There’s no way he can get through all three pillars before he runs out of steam and they’d still have an angry bear to deal with. So might as well try to knock him out and hope that dispels all the shadows. He yells up at Rin.

“Forget the chains! We’re doing that thing ya did at the library! Yamantaka-kun!”

The demon lunges towards the giant bear, reaching up to grapple, grabbing its wrists to try to keep the iron claws out of the way if they aren’t otherwise occupied. They don’t need long, just a moment for Yamantaka to clap his top set of hands, ready to blast him with a burst of flames from the inside the moment Rin is able to join in.

Ow, ow, ow, ow, OW! As much as he wants to, Rin is unable to hold on to the chains -- the pain from the iron cripples his feet and makes him lose his grip. He apologizes to Yugo.

"I'm sorry... We'll think of something else...!"

Then, Shima is calling him, and his crest raises in alarm.

"But... I don't have Kurikara!! It won't be as powerful...!"

However, it was still the best idea they had, for the moment, so Rin wheels upwards, tucking his badly injured feet up against his body and setting himself aflame again. He lands on Yamantaka's horns (ow, ow, owwwww, his feet) and focuses all the power he has into the other demon. Brilliant blue swirls with dramatic black.

"Yamantakaaaa! Take him out!!"

With Ignatius on his way out, Tanyuu darts out of the way of the rubble and redoubles her efforts to grow the support vines up to Gon, Yusei and Yugo. The fight isn't going well, and things need to be finished quickly.

Yamantaka's fire burns bright, and while the lack of sword obviously weakens its impact, it's enough to take hold. Black and blue flames erupt from Bezaliel, causing him to let go of Smoky and rear back, roaring in outrage and pain. The shadow constructs shiver but don't break.

Instead, Bezaliel stumbles backwards, almost falling off of his own pillar. He turns to Samyaza in a moment of panic.

"SAMYAZA, AID ME!" he cries.

Samyaza looks stunned. She clearly doesn't know what to do, drawing back a little in her shock. She looks at Rin and Shima, at the hanging captives, and then back at Bezaliel.

"I didn't ask you to come here!" she yells at him again in frustration.

Jackson, being a tadpole entirely constructed of magic by its masters will, isn't very smart. As her last orders were to take Ignatius away from the conflict, Jackson's just going to keep on doing that ... right up until claws prick into its weird, rubbery skin.

That only has the effect of making Jackson squeal and go faster, hurtling right towards that shadow barrier with its riders in tow, a firm grip on the fae slung across him.

As Tadpole Jackson continues his quick trek towards the shadow barrier, Strange picks possibly the most inopportune time to show up back in the reflection that Herbert's carrying.

"Point it closer towards his face!" Strange orders, further proving that poor Herbert cannot catch a break. Strange is trying his hardest to seem calm and collected and not at all concerned about the fact that Ignatius is super close to fucking dying. That being said, he's failing miserably and looks/sounds worried as hell.

Since he can't really do much besides pep talks and reassurances right now, that's what he's going to do. "Ignatius! It's—it's your wizard, focus on my voice!"

And thus the plan of 'Strange sticks around to tell everybody else what happened at the party' goes right out of the window.

"I'm a cat, you utter fool!" Herbert tries to say, but it comes out a garbled mess because he's still plastered against the tadpole, hanging on for dear life with the plate clenched in his teeth.

So on the upside, nobody can even see Strange fussing like he's Ignatius' 500th mom.

The bear is scared. She can't feel it from here obviously, but no one who isn't scared would shout That.

Reira grins. "...It looks like we'll win anyway- so don't worry. We'll go find our leader," the bat whispers, "And she'll help the ones he had..."

She pauses, considering her options. Leave? Stay hidden? She doesn't want to incriminate the Hare after all, so...

"..Thank you- for trying to help. ...And...for giving me a nice name, like no one ever did," she whispers, ducking her head. "I hope we see you later."

She doesn't leave right away- she waits. Bezaliel is looking to the Hare, and if she moves she'll no doubt be spotted. But once his attention is elsewhere, she runs. Runs for the first sign of cover in the remaining party area, so that she can find an opening to get the heck out of this place.

(Or, maybe just make sure everyone else gets out first. That's kind of important too.)

Meanwhile, Smoky plummets to the floor at the bottom of the pillar for the second time in not very long at all, and in much worse shape to boot. They land on their back, at least, which is good news for both of their gems, but the iron-tipped injuries from Belaziel have weakened them badly enough that it's a long moment before they can even roll onto their side. They plant two hands on the ground to try to push themselves up, clasping the other one to the gouges across their middle, and grimace in pain. This is quite literally the worst experience they have ever had in their life!

With Tanyuu working to support the captives with her vines, it feels like attacking the base of pillars again would only be detrimental to her efforts-- but in her panicked glancing around, she sees them flicker when Bezaliel's concentration is broken by Yamantaka's flame. Rather than aim for the pillars, Eruka urges the tadpole bombs she's summoned by now to go up, up, until they're eye level with Bezaliel and swarming him and his pillar like a grinning, demonic brood.

It'll be the last thing he sees before Eruka folds her hands together and the bombs explode, this time with all the noise and flash concentrated around the Architect instead of being thrown willy-nilly. The actual damage each individual explosion causes is still relatively minimal -- she focused on volume, not power -- but as fare as a distraction goes, she hopes it's enough.

"Come on, move!" She'll turn her attention to Smoky after that, hopping over towards the gem and tugging at their arm frantically to get them to their feet. Since Smokey is way larger than she is, this is not particularly effective.

Edited 2018-08-10 06:45 (UTC)

During the moment Rin first lands onto Yugo, he flinched. Then he tried to look up... But between his face stuck in a grimace and eyesight being glazed over toward the agony, the secretary bird didn't get much a response out of him besides a vaguely questioning-

"Huh...?"

Just because he definitely has the least chains doesn't mean Yugo's pain tolerance can hold up against the soul-searing burn of pure iron (stupid fae changes). Enough to stay semi-conscious and do his earlier useless wriggling out of desperation, yet not to be totally aware as Rin tries and fails to melt the chains.

So the bird's apology, the shouting, and other chaos wrought in this battle... a lot flies over his head.

Otama Jackson and its riders disappear into the shadow. A volley of tadpole bombs explode all around Bezaliel, lighting up his pillar and sending him stumbling again, still stunned by the effects of black soul fire.

It's in those moments that Bezaliel snaps, his desperation reaching a peak. This turns out to be a bad thing, as animals do desperate things when they're cornered.

The pillars holding the captives begin disintegrating, but not before the shadows shift and reform, enveloping the carnival members chained against them. Bezaliel roars, and everything in the area seems to shift to the negative, as if a filter has been applied over everything you see.

The three pillars of shadow, enveloping Yugo, Yuusei, and Gongenzaka, seem to reach inside of their prisoners and wrench something free from their bodies. It isn't amazingly painful, just cold. Very cold. Of course, no one can totally see what happens in the darkness, until three black shards shoot out of the pillars and up to Bezaliel, circling him around him and his shadowy aura.

"LILITH!" Bezaliel bellows. "I OFFER THEIR SINS TO YOU! YOUR GARDEN OF EDEN IS UNDER SIEGE!"

If anything was going to spur Samyaza to action, it seems it was this. She flies up towards him, her voice cracking with sudden, uncontrollable fear.

"Bezaliel no!" she cries. "Don't!"

"DIVINE LILITH!" He ignores her, raising his massive paws, as a network of geometric patterns form between the three floating shards of darkness. "ANSWER YOUR SERVANT'S PRAYERS!"

Gongenzaka hasn't really been all that 'here', through most of the evening. Being so filled with Fae magic, being shackled in iron and then on top of that exposed to a number of explosives and flames (however 'distant') does that.

But his ears twitch when he hears 'Lilith'. They twitch, and with a weak grunt he opens his eyes, only to see darkness. And it's cold, so cold, immensely cold and-

And he is not the only one here, he remembers. He remembers there were the others here, and that is enough to drive him to try calling out with his heart. Help, he doesn't know how, doesn't know what that force can do, but it's all he can plead from it through the dark and cold.

CREATION, HELP..!

The shadows sweeping over everything are terrifying for more than the immediately obvious--for a moment Tanyuu is back inside the Void, whispers echoing in her ears--

Bezaliel's shout shakes her from the memory, and in a panic she sends all of her magic into the vines at his feet. They don't grow fast, nor will they restrain more than as a nuisance, but she has to try--!

Edited 2018-08-10 15:03 (UTC)

Smoky Quartz held out admirably, but this is the thing that does it. Through all the pain, the darkness sweeps through the area, and Steven's fear spikes uncontrollable. Combined with everything else, he loses hold on the fusion, and iron effect has faded enough that they are able turn to light.

As Eruka tries to help them, Smoky glows and poofs into two much smaller gems - Amethyst, and an tragically naked Steven, back in his faerie form. Steven, for the moment, can only cower. Left over wounds from Smoky's injuries still streak across his belly and chest.

"Oh no," he says in a tiny voice, ashamed of the fact that he wasn't good enough to fix this.

Edited 2018-08-10 15:13 (UTC)

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FOR HERBERT

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