⇨ 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

[whattaprick]

Between the sudden shock of pain down his front and the odd sensation of an enchantment breaking, Lambert doesn’t get much warning before the spell goes awry under him, making him roar. On the bright side, he’s in a sufficient amount of agony that more on top of it really doesn’t do more than make him shudder and curl in briefly on himself before he’s forcing himself on the move again.

As he goes, blood splashing onto the earth his claws churn beneath him, he marshals his wits together for another spell — one he triggers with a mutter and the tap of a claw to a bloodied chest. Maybe Creation’s magic will work and maybe it won’t, but it’s hopefully insurance against being clawed like that again.

[npcarnival]

One of the Syrlya's sticks her with the blade - she yeowls in pain and then turns to leap on him, slashing with iron claws. She's hurt, but magic tigers don't go down easy.

Nearby, her backup is arriving as a squad breaks away from the fighting ahead.

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya is going to try and take advantage of that. When Shamshel leaps and comes for him, he moves to try and twist out of the way while stabbing upward with his blade to try and put it through her neck in one movement.

The illusion, after a few seconds, will make another singular attempt at stabbing her.

[whattaprick]

Dragons don't go down easy, either. While Syrlya deals in close combat with Shamshel, and having gotten a solid hit in, Lambert's going to take the opportunity to lunge after her while she's going for Syrlya. If he can, he's aiming to sink teeth and claws into her back and haunches, hoping to tear through the muscles of her flanks or -- if he's really lucky -- break her spine.

He isn't unaware of the Honorables coming up on them, but he's chosen to attempt to decisively take down Shamshel rather than try to spook them away with a fireball.

[npcarnival]

Syrlya doesn't get her in the neck. Instead, she slashes her iron claws across his shoulder, striking long but shallow.

In the meantime, Lambert manages to bite her leg and haunch in his mouth. As he does, several arrow-like projectiles glance off of him, the angle unable to penetrate. Shamshel's stripes become blindingly bright, making it impossible to see.

[chronosynthesis]

Syrlya stumbles back, turning hos blade to try and block any possible immediate secondary attack after getting hit the first time. He's more aware of the backup coming as he tries to put space between them, and casts to cover himself, Lambert, and Shamshel under a purple dome meant to reflect projectiles.

He calls out to Lambert as the light starts to get brighter, out of urgency.

[whattaprick]

Lambert feels the attempted attack glance off his scales, but what's most important now is that he's got a solid grip on Shamshel -- an opportunity he's not about to waste. He bites down harder as she grows blindingly bright, claws gouging at her side as he shakes his head back and forth like a hound worrying at a rabbit, hoping to break at least a few bones.

With a last, mighty toss of his head, blood streaming from his mouth, he flings Shamshel away as hard as he can, over the foliage. He's still blinking spots from his vision, but he'll turn to the sound of Syrlya's voice, ducking down to the Mesmer with a growl.

"Get on." Though he wouldn't quite say 'mission accomplished,' hopefully that's done sufficient damage to keep Shamshel's Honorables distracted for a while.

[npcarnival]

The arrows will puncture right through Syr's magic bubble thanks to iron, but luckily these Honorables can't shoot for shit.

The blinding light that Lambert just tossed into the bushes wizzes up into the sky. Apparently flying tigers are a thing.

[chronosynthesis]

And thus they're spared by the world's most incompetent backup.

Syrlya won't hesitate when he sees the feedback bubble punchered anyway, and hauls himself right onto Lambert's back and holding on tight. He watches Shamshel fly up, but he doesn't have a way to attack so he can't do more than that.

[whattaprick]

And so the tiger heads up, up and away like the world's deadliest balloon. Lambert's answer to the ineffectual attack is to breathe a fireball right at the Honorables at the same time that he launches himself into the air, heading in the opposite direction from Shamshel, snarling under his breath. Every wingbeat tugs at the clawmarks left by the Architect, but it's still their fastest way of getting away.

It doesn't feel like they've gained much from that conflict, but at the moment, he's fresh out of ideas except for finding a spot to lick their wounds and figure out where their allies are. While they're airborne and winging it to the healing temple, keeping close to the treeline, he'll try to get a sense for how the overall conflict is going just based on observation.