⇨ 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

[kingsroads]

Strange frowns, looking away from Tyki for a moment. He remembers the effects of the iron on Ignatius at the branding. That's the thing that started off this chain of events which led him to be stuck in the damn thing.

"They had him bound in iron when that bear brought him to Samyaza's party." Which Tyki already knows a little bit of, thanks to Strange's quick summary in the Mirror chamber. "The hamster helped take the iron off of Ignatius but...it was bad." Really bad.

"Seeking out Eruka would be good. I believe her tadpole misses her." At least, based on the amount of whining that thing did, Strange is assuming he misses her. "If you wish, I can take a look to see if she's been freed already."

[prazerbutterfly]

"Is he somewhere safe then? Is he stable?" he asks, less out of concern, and more to just know. Though it might sound like genuine concern depending on how Strange takes it. If Ignatius was going to die then watching over that egg that contained his Heart would be a useless task should it ever be his turn to hold it. Peridot apparently never handed it over to anyone else.

"Which is why I'd rather stay here for the time being until someone else steps in to help her," because if not he honestly might. There was one ability that he had yet to use but given how his power to choose failed him, he didn't want to risk that one going wrong. A pure created vacuum would crush anything within it, the pressure so intense it would eradicate a normal body in seconds. But if it failed, if he couldn't control it, it would ruin a good thing.

"I would appreciate it if you could. It would save me time otherwise and I don't have anyone in Acquisitions tracked."

[kingsroads]

"He is." Having absolutely zero knowledge that Tyki's involved with the Heart business in the first place, Strange is just taking this as nosiness and curiosity. As for Eruka...

"Stay near a reflection. I should be back in five minutes or so." And without even waiting for Tyki to say 'okay, I understand', Strange vanishes from the reflection. Assuming that Tyki doesn't move or drop his hand mirror, Strange reappears in less than five minutes.

"Bad news, she's still imprisoned. Good news, there aren't any honorables or architects near her. I don't know the exact location, but I got a fairly good view of the area around her prism."

[prazerbutterfly]

This was just how war was. He felt no ill will towards Ignatius, even for what he did to Strange, and it came with the territory that prisoners, kidnapees, and losses to death happened daily. It's just how things were and nothing was going to stop that.

"Alright," he says, confirming he understood to keep the mirror out. In the meantime, his eyes will return upwards, his ears occasionally sliding around to listen for attackers. In truth, he just wanted to keep this area clear.

He sneers gently, "My only real issue will be not knowing her skillset. I hadn't had time to introduce myself properly nor get to know her." Powers and all. Rita he had some knowledge at least. "But describe the area for me. I had a lot of time to explore Eden."

[kingsroads]

Thankfully, Strange was watching a bit of the fight between everybody and Bezaliel, so he's got a solid idea of what Eruka's powers are.

"She can conjure explosives, turn into an actual frog, and turn into this slime-like substance." And then, Strange describes the area where Eruka is at fairly well.

"I've no idea where specifically in Eden that is: the reflections aren't good for narrowing down the exact location. But I hope that helps." He really hope that helps: what else can he do otherwise? "I should head back up to the Mirror and see if anything's changed."

[prazerbutterfly]

Has he ever told Strange that he loves him for his constant information? If not, he really needs to.

"That's interesting. I saw her conjure this tadpole but it was only emitting light," he responds, his tail flicking gently to the side in remembrance. He commits it to memory just as he does her location. He thinks he knows where that is but he can always get his Tease to scout it out for him.

"Thank you for the information," he says again, just as he did before in the Mirror room, "Do try not to get yourself killed or at least let me know before you do." So someone can snatch that soul back. Then again, Ringmaster was going to be there.

[kingsroads]

Nosiness and a disregard for people's personal boundaries, baby.

As Tyki mentions try not to die, Strange laughs a little, before shaking his head. "Coming back to life was...odd. I don't want to do it again."

So yep, he's going to try his hardest not to die. His tone is very light-hearted and joking, like coming back to life is perfectly normal and the circumstances behind his death weren't something that were slightly traumatizing. No issues here, no sir!

"And good luck freeing Eruka."

[prazerbutterfly]

He'd wave but he feels it would be lost on Strange given how he was in a mirror and a very small one on top of that. Instead he lowers the mirror to his hip where he uses his power to clip it through the hook there that usually held his delete lists at home. He can always store it in his pack later. He just wanted to keep a better ear out for Strange if necessary.

"No shame in wasting a perfectly good egg either. Who knows when you'll actually need it. Nor do I wish to experience it either." The egg he means, not death itself. That's right. He's seen it with Ignatius after all. He knows exactly where those eggs come from. As for Eruka, "Mm, thanks. Safe travels."