⇨ EDEN PT. 4 (FINALE)

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 89
Where: Eden
What: The Mirror is taken by the carnival, and several people from the carnival have been taken by Lilith. As Eden's Architects take sides, the battle for Eden's future is set to reach its conclusion.
Warnings: Violence.

INFINITE↴ When the Silver Mirror is taken, the war truly begins. Lilith had seen fit to take her time, gloating over the enemies she perceived as being no challenge to her power - only to sense the moment that the Ringmaster claimed the Silver Mirror and took the skies in challenge. The Ringmaster has taken on her half beast form, black scaled, winged, and horned, and wielding the Silver Mirror as some kind of shield. Only moments ago, she used it to blast a whole clear through the cathedral. Lilith, realizing her mistake, has swept up the darkness created by Bezaliel and begun using it as a weapon against the Ringmaster. She has six silver wings that reflect light like mirrors, as well as strange, geometric horns. Ostensibly, part of the Silver Mirror's magic has been taken into herself, which means that even though the Ringmaster has the Mirror, Lilith still has control over it. She scatters the prisms containing her prisoners across Eden while she counters her foe, drawing on their strength to aid her. Two godlike beings clash in the sky above you. On the ground, a war begins. What do you do? ► FAE VS NEPHALEM: While all of this is going on, the Ringmaster and Lilith are essentially fighting over the Silver Mirror in the sky. It is all very cyclical and unending, and just as outrageous looking as it sounds. They both currently have some degree of hold over the Mirror right now, which means the advantage is wildly vacillating between the two of them. You probably don't want to directly interfere with this, but who knows? Maybe you'd got something really cunning up your sleeve. ► EDEN'S ARCHITECTS: In the aftermath of the Silver Mirror being taken, the Architects of Eden are being forced to choose sides. At first glance, it would appear that Saraqael (wolf), Samyaza (hare), Araqiel (stag), Penemue (raven), and Armaros (spider) have chosen to fight with the Furies of Eden in an attempt to cast Lilith out for good. Bezaliel (bear), Shamshel (tiger), Azazel (crocodile), Chazaqiel (eagle), and Baraqel (stingray) have, alternatively, chosen to defend Lilith, and are attempting to convince as many Honorables to follow in their path as possible. Gadreel (dolphin) and Kakabel (axolotl) seem to be uncomfortably remaining neutral for the moment and seeing how things play out. Not all Honorables or Scholars have followed the choice of their Architect. Many have been pulled one way or the other regardless of their kind, and are generally being accepted into the fight on their claimed side. You can NPC conflicts with random Honorables, but not the Architects. To interact with those guys, you need to do an investigation. ► PRISM BREAK: All of the carnival members that attended Samyaza's garden party (except Herbert) have been captured by Lilith after falling prey to a trap set by Bezaliel. Each of them has been trapped inside mirrored prisms that are now scattered around hard to access areas of Eden, defended by both Honorables supporting their maker and by mirror eyed dopplegangers. The infinite reflections of the characters inside the prisms are being fed on by Lilith, and she is tearing out as many of those reflections as necessary to do her bidding in the meantime. Each reflection is functionally a magical clone with no true will of its own, but will be able to fully mimic the emotions and powers of the characters they're taken from. They serve Lilith above all. Each reflection spawned from a prism take a fraction of their host's spiritual energy with them, meaning the more clones that are spawned, the weaker the real version will become. The more powerful a character is, the more energy each reflection takes to make - so if you have a character with lots of powers, they will probably have something like 1-4 dopplegangers spawned, while characters with few or no powers will be going completely quantity over quality and spawn potentially dozens of mirror clones. Clones shatter and vanish when destroyed, though the prisms will keep spawning new ones until the captive is set free. Captives, it's your job to NPC these clones. Captives will have no idea what's going on outside of their prism besides the abstract idea that these reflections are being harvested from them, and that's bad. The mirror clones will be attempting to protect the source prisms from disruption, as well as generally trying to destroy all enemies. NOTE: all captives will have returned to their natural forms by now (IE are no longer animals) and their clones will reflect this. Those missing "darkness shards" from their chest will also have had those returned. ► EDEN'S FURY: The Furies of Eden are striking back against Lilith at last, and it turns out a lot more of them have lingering rebellious ideas than previously though. Those that take up the cause of the Furies will be fighting on the carnival's side, so you are free to NPC some allied Honorables as well. You can also use the Investigations section to interact with named rebels, if you want, or to get an idea of what they are generally doing. Another potential avenue of investigation is trying to get the Serpent out here, as she'd be undoubtedly a powerful ally if cured of her curse. You might need it. Now that they know of the fae, the Honorables and Lilith-supporting Architects have no qualms using iron again you! They will be utilizing iron in all possible weaponry. ► NEW, CONFUSED, OR BOTH: Did you just get here? Did you fall behind and now you're terribly lost? Don't sweat it - let your character be as confused as you are. Take the opportunity to make top levels asking other characters what's going on in-game, or check out the original setting info post to catch up. The short version is this: the carnival wanted to steal a powerful artifact called the Silver Mirror from Lilith, which was stashed in her realm called Eden. They did just that, and now Lilith is back and she's pissed!

Comments

[npcarnival]

Sort of... it's more that the Serpent seems to understand enough not to kill them when they come close. Getting her to actively follow them... that's harder.

[periphrasing]

And the last time her own group managed to reach the serpent in any capacity, it was through Steven, who is currently being held prisoner. God dammit.

The Serpent may have lost her mind, but according to Steven she was still lucid enough that she was able to understand that the barrens expedition team meant the Furies no harm, and so she let them be. Peridot wants to try to tap into that somehow. She doesn't know where she can find the Serpent though, or how they can quickly locate her Do the Furies have any methods?

[npcarnival]

She usually spends most of her time sleeping in one of the caverns near the Furies base - the one that Peridot was at before. She doesn't really understand language, though, which is the problem. If this 'Steven' was communicating with her, it must have been on a psychic level.

They could all have feelings even before they were uplifted, after all, even if they were far more simplistic.

[periphrasing]

...The Furies don't have any empaths among their ranks, do they?

She asks this in a tone that indicates that she knows this is a frigging long shot.

[npcarnival]

Well... Armaros can sort of read minds? But Armaros also isn't renowned for her touchy feeliness.

There could be other Honorables in Eden with a power like that, but none in the Furies before this point. Some of the bards can communicate their emotions to others, but they don't receive it back the same way.

Maybe Samyaza? Apparently, she can communicate through song...

[periphrasing]

Peridot is a SU. Peridot can appreciate the power of communicating your feelings through song.

She's going to ask Yefefi for more clarification on Samyaza's powers; is it safe to assume that Yefefi would be able to convey the whole "opening up your heart" thing that Samyaza does to convey messages?

[npcarnival]

Yeah, I think that would be reasonable. Samyaza was one of the Furies' sympathizers, after all, so they've probably interacted with her in that capacity before.

[periphrasing]

RADICAL.

Does Yefefi have any idea where Samyaza is at the moment. Yeah, it's a crazy chaotic battle and everything, but it's imperative that they find her and speak to her ASAP? It sounds like she might be the key to making this work.

[npcarnival]

They aren't sure!

Last they heard, Samyaza was throwing her party to try to buy time for the people still hanging out in Eden, and to make a distraction. But they heard in the cathedral that Bezaliel attacked it and took the guests prisoner?

Who knows if Samyaza was implicated!

joining in with possum’s permission!

[anti_nonsense]

So the fruit isn’t expected to help the Serpent... That’s too bad.

As it turns out, they have an eavesdropper. (Not a subtle one, however; it’s perfectly possible that either of them saw Rita before her approach.) Rita’s been standing nearby, a silver branch tipped with a Flame blossom strapped to her lower back, and a Fruit in one hand. She was thinking of offering said fruit to the Serpent, but if it’s no use...

Well, she’ll still offer one to the Furies, in case they have use for it. She still has a second one she can use for research.

To Peridot, she’ll offer to help look for Samyaza. Rita wants to help the Serpent, too.

[periphrasing]

Peridot is super grateful for Rita's offer. She wants to help the serpent but also Steven and Amethyst are out there somewhere and she is desperate to make sure they're safe? She thinks that there might be merit to the idea of getting Samyaza's help in either having the Serpent join the fight, or to communicate that they may have the means to help her somehow. Peridot's other idea is to communicate to RM somehow to try and draw Lilith out over the barrens, and basically bring the mirror to where the serpent is.

These are all just rough ideas she's got going, but she trusts Rita to handle the situation.

[npcarnival]

Yefefi will say that Saraqael currently has the rest of the trees, so that will probably be enough for the Furies. Rita can keep the fruit for herself! Maybe it will be useful.

Yefefi will help look for Samyaza is desire, and can get some of the other Furies to come too. Their grasp on the layout of Eden is rusty, though.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita returns the Fruit to one of her pockets. She intends to study them to find out how they grow, so Eden’s refugees can continue to make use of the Fruit in the long term.

She’s not much use in sniffing out the missing rabbit, but she can keep an eye out for magic and protect the Furies along the way. At least she’s pretty familiar with the city, now.

[periphrasing]

Peridot can turn into a bat and try to search from the air since she can also try to look for Steven and Amethyst at the same time that way. Hopefully between her, Rita, and Yefefi and the other Furies, they'll be able to find her quickly.

[npcarnival]

It turns out that finding Samyaza is anything but quick. Eden is in utter chaos and Samyaza is small and swift - did she even make it away from Lilith in time? What happened in the aftermath of her party? No one really seems to be sure.

Who all is looking for her?

[anti_nonsense]

In addition to those already named, Rita's going to yell into a mirror and get Strange to help keep an eye out through Eden's mirrors as best he can (sometime before he does his Dumb Thing), and while running around the city, she and Peridot will recruit Beau and Tanyuu to help them cover more ground.

[npcarnival]

They end up heading in the direction of Samyaza's gardens. After searching through the trees for a while, they stumble upon multiple bodies. There is a dead tapir, a dead pig, a dead skunk, and eventually... there is a wing-eared hare lying still in the grass.

[periphrasing]

Peridot didn't know these guys, but even still, the body count here is making her feel angry for some indescribable reason.

She'll confirm with Yefefi that the hare is Samyaza, since she never actually met the architect herself. Someone else will have to get closer and check for a pulse, so to speak; she's a rock, she doesn't know anything about checking for vital signs.

[npcarnival]

Yefefi confirms that it's Samyaza, but seems too stunned to do anything. The sight of Samyaza being possibly dead is too much for them to shake off.

[kingsroads]

Assuming there's a nearby puddle or someone brought a hand mirror, Strange will pipe up and tell everybody that the dead tapir was one of Samyaza's followers who helped Herbert and Ignatius escape through the tunnels. Obviously, this is some sort of retaliatory action. Thankfully, he knows how animals work and will point out that someone really should do cpr or check for a pulse on that rabbit.

He also looks a little bit like he's going to throw up at the sight of the poor animal corpses.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita’s got you covered, Strange; she brought a compact mirror. But now, for how calm she’s been while navigating through a war zone, she’s looking pretty distressed, herself.

She’s muttering something about how they should have gotten here sooner, that maybe this could have been avoided... but Strange’s suggestion snaps her out of it, and she kneels down to check the rabbit’s vitals.

[npcarnival]

Samyaza is warm and breathing shallowly. She's very unconscious, though.

[periphrasing]

Assuming this information is conveyed, Peridot's next move is to pull something out of her hammerspace gauntlet and offer it to Rita: It's the healing draught that Five gave to Peridot as a Solstice gift.

She'd prefer if they didn't have to use up her "super useful and rare potion" if at all possible, but if no one else has any method of healing she'll gladly give it up for the cause.

[anti_nonsense]

Rita takes the bottle from Peridot and, holding Samyaza‘s head, carefully tries to make the rabbit swallow a dose of the potion.

“Come on, rabbit, wake up,” she urges the Architect.

[npcarnival]

Rita will be able to feed her some of that potion, and after a little while Samyaza scrunches her nose, like she's tentatively waking up. It'll be a bit longer before she's really up for conversation, though. Thankfully, it's quite possible to carry her.