lostcarnival | ⇨ EDEN PT. 4 (FINALE)

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Of course you are," Syrlya sighs as he glances sideways at the knife, and it's only Lambert on his shoulders that keeps them stiff instead of slumping in defeat. Because, well, Lambert's still a cat.

"What are you doing now?"

The knife happens to be in Lambert's mouth at the moment as he perches on Syrlya's shoulders, meaning he has to take a moment to release it, pinning it flat to the mesmer with a paw so he can look down.

"You're going after the mirror, aren't you?"

Because the big flashy battle in the sky, well, it's pretty fucking obvious where Jonathan "I am the best at everything and my ego knows no bounds so clearly the outcome of this conflict depends on me" Strange would go.

"What else can I do?" Strange asks, as if this is the most obvious thing in the world. He can't touch stuff, he can't really use his magic, and he's trapped inside of reflections: there's not much he can do to help out with the people trapped inside those prisms to begin with.

"I've been inside the damn thing for the past two days. I might give the Ringmaster an edge that Lilith doesn't have."

Or he might end up burning out his soul thanks to the combined magics involved. Details, details.

"Not get yourself killed again, but you're going to do it regardless what anyone says." Because 'might be reckless' is, undoubtedly, extremely reckless.

"Are you going to explain how you think you're going to accomplish that?" He has some doubts about Strange's command of the mirror, given the whole being stuck and not being able to navigate reflections fast enough. But he's already resigned himself that it doesn't matter what he says.

"What he said," Lambert says, simply, rather than create his own tirade. Syrlya's really summed it up.

Strange looks over at the two of them with an irritated little frown. "I'm already a dead man if Lilith takes full control of the Mirror. I'm certain she won't take kindly to a human stuck inside her artifact."

Sure, the Ringmaster might be able to make a speedy exit and save as many carnival members as she could, but Strange knows that he is uniquely fucked should they lose this fight. As for how he's going to accomplish that...

"Neither the Ringmaster nor Lilith can get a firm grasp on the magics of the Mirror. If I call upon my connection to the thing, I can push it more firmly towards the Ringmaster's side or strengthen her magic with my own."

"Fine." And then that's... all Syrlya has to say on the matter for once. He still looks displeased, but rather than give that look to Strange he's focused ahead as they walk.

It's not a terribly refined plan, but not much about this situation is -- not if the Ringmaster's reaction to the Mirror is anything to go by. He doesn't have any practical advice for what he imagines is a quest that's largely going to depend on luck and raw power, but...

"Remember what we found in the Athenaeum," is what he settles on, finally. Don't just blindly bulldoze your way through with brute force, Strange, that's his job! "The Mirror doesn't have a will, and Lilith is a Nephalem. She's had ages to learn how to use the mirror, but it's still made with fae magic. Maybe there's a way to use that against her."

He could say 'be careful,' but he know that 'careful' has gone completely out the window already. He'll simply touch a paw to the dagger's silver instead, gaze pensive.

"If you're doing something stupid, you should make it count."

Edited 2018-08-16 22:55 (UTC)

An expression of relief flits across Strange's face as he realizes Lambert is offering advice instead of fussing at him or further dissuading him from the plan. Because yeah, it's a shit plan. But what else can he do? But Lambert's advice does make sense. The Mirror is fae and in Strange's opinion, it seems like these Honorables have had little to no experience with the fae to begin with. He could use that as an advantage.

"I'm afraid I've already done the stupidest thing I can think of," Strange remarks, with a tired little smile as he raps the exterior of the reflection with his knuckles. No matter what he does to help out the Ringmaster, it can't be as dumb as panicking and getting himself stuck inside a fae artifact to begin with.

"But the same goes for the two of you. I don't know what the hell you both are doing, but as it doesn't involve attacking those prisms with everybody else, I'm a bit worried it's also something stupid."

Syrlya, meanwhile, has instead decided his opinion is meaningless to Strange and is internally sulking about it instead.

"We're going after the Architects," he responds with an oddly light tone. It's easy enough to be neutral when it's business, anyway. "If you want to cripple a battle like this, you target leaders."

Something he's probably already familiar with in war. He doubts the Architects are guarding captives personally, but they most certainly will be directing them, and if they can server the flow of orders they prevent an organized front from combating the very unorganized carnival and Furies.

"What he said," Lambert repeats. Cats can't smirk, but somehow, the set of his ears makes him look smug anyway.

"Let's see whose stupid plan works out better, huh?"

"Hypocrites," Strange simply remarks. And since he's human, that little smirk on his face is plainly visible. Don't do the stupid thing, Syrlya and Lambert say, before they go ahead and do a stupid thing. At least in Strange's mind, this means they can't try to criticize his plans anymore.

"There's a high chance that the Architects have iron on them. It's no use trying to cripple them if you end up crippled yourself."

Syrlya tilts his head to look at the reflection with a crooked smirk. "This is my expertise, Strange."

Killing things (or at least winning against) that should feasibly be able to crush him with a pinky? That's familiar, and he's probably more confident about it than is healthy. But damn, he didn't finish dealing with Balthazar to worry about the Architects now.

"We are aware of the iron, but thank you."

"He's killed a god," Lambert chimes in, helpfully, unconsciously echoing Syrlya's thoughts.

"We'll take care of our part if you take care of yours, magician."

"And I gave England back all her magic," Strange points out, a little testily. Syrlya was good at killing powerful beings, Strange was good at manipulating scary amounts of magic. That didn't make either of their plans less dangerous or less risky.

"But fine. I expect to see both of you alive and in one piece after all this is finished."

He looks over to Lambert with a little nod before vanishing from the reflection.

⇨ EDEN PT. 4 (FINALE)

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