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lostcarnival2018-08-15 11:28 am
ringleaders) wrote in lostcarnival2018-08-15 11:28 am
⇨ 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.
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! |
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She sits and, with a slight grimace, she starts applying the ointment to the patch of burnt skin to the side of her stomach. It stings, but Rita tries not to show too much of a reaction in front of Ignatius.
"Since when are you the kind of fae to get endeared enough to a changeling to pull a stunt like that? Last I checked, you treated us like we were nothing more than tools." That was her experience in Portland, after all. Or... the other Rita's. But if what she's been told is true, then it was still her after all.
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"As I was saying a moment ago," he says. "That was a mistake."
He's quiet for a moment, and then smiles very faintly.
"Though from what I recall, none of you were particularly endearing."
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But his follow-up brings a scowl to her face, and she gives a hmph as she goes back to tending to her own injury. "You're not exactly endearing yourself, you know!"
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"What do you actually want from this?" he asks.
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"I'm just here to get this treated," she huffs as she finishes applying the ointment, then sets the remaining mixture aside in a manner that's a little rougher than necessary. "But if you're asking why I bothered talking to you at all..." She stops, pursing her lips as she seems to try and think of how to word it.
"Obviously, I don't trust you. You might not be the deceiving sort, but you're an enemy, and despite our history, I don't know what the hell's going on in your head. I don't know if you're the same person I remember you being... or that I imagined you were." In the years she spent as his prisoner, they never exactly sat down and talked. To Rita, he was always a looming threat, a pair of eyes looking over her shoulder, a fiery fist that could cripple a dissenting mortal in one blow. A fearsome, but largely abstract, figure. "Basically, you're an unknown variable, and as a scholar, I can't easily ignore something like that."
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"I'm not interested in trying to convince you I'm any better or worse than you imagine," he says. "Circumstance posed us as enemies, and any resentment or hatred you feel as a result is ultimately justified. I could explain my motives, but the only judge of their worth would be you."
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"Hearing your reasons might just piss me off... but if you'd explain, I'd listen," Rita says as she idly picks at the tattered fabric around her injury. "As it is, a lot of what you Court fae do just looks like pointless cruelty to me."
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He thinks over his words for a moment.
"I was sent to that planet by the Summer Queen," he says. "The Rose Queen had been working as a part of team of Summer Court intending to colonize it, mostly due to the unique nature of the world's spiritual core. However, there was push back from the Winter Court, as well as the natives and the divisions of Heaven and Hell fighting for dominance. I was asked to defend the Rose Queen during her efforts."
"Not long after, the Severing happened, cutting us off from Arcadia. At first it was a simple frustration, but when we found ourselves unable to disrupt it, things grew more dire. Any fae that came to find us would end up trapped as well. Escape became the priority, and the fighting between Courts lessened while we tried to work out a solution."
"Many of the fae trapped there turned their attention to building up their ranks with armies of changelings. I had taken changelings before, but only adult warriors who had lost to me in battle, and I considered it a mark of respect. As it turned out, most of the others were more interested in taking children, as they were easier to train and would more naturally accept the faerie powers they were given. Some, like the Rose Queen, even turned to making faeblooded heirs."
He touches his hand to his mouth and chin, thinking deeply.
"I decided not to go that route, but I did accept their point. The best way to interact with the spell trapping us would be through the blood of natives. I ended up taking a few children under my care in the hopes of figuring out some way to make that work, as well as a few adults to help look after them. None of it worked out how I anticipated, mostly because of the changelings hating me."
"It surprised me, at the time, since I thought they would be loyal to the person raising them. Of course, fae aren't born children, and aren't subjected to the same kinds of irrationality that human parents are. I didn't know what to do with it, and it frustrated me, so after the first of the changelings started to rebel or run away I lost patience with it."
"I ended up not having much to do with actually resolving that problem, and half of my changelings turned out to not be natives, anyway."
He glances at Rita.
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"You can't be serious..." Her voice trembles, anger and frustration welling up inside her. "Everything I went through, and all the others... and you didn't even know what the hell you were doing!?"
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"I didn't know a damn thing," he confirms, staring at the ground. "And I hated that I didn't. It was a magic outside of our control, and most fae aren't accustomed to being controlled like that. I was trying to do what I could to fix things for us, but obviously little attention was paid to the effect we had on the mortals around us. The world had been set up to be out colony, what difference did it make?"
He's asking it rhetorically, not because he can't see how it would matter from her perspective.
"After that, I was just glad to be able to return home... though it wasn't long until the Summer Queen asked me to aid the Rose Queen again, specifically in pursuit of the Blue Rose. The Rose Queen has always had a few screws loose, but losing her faeblood completely shattered whatever stability she had built up over the years. Her son and the Rose are all she cares about, now."
"And that's where... all of this happened. I saw you again, and I thought..." He looks off to the side, hesitating. "Well, it doesn't matter what I think of you, really. It doesn't matter what you think of me, either. I have no illusions of ever attaining your understanding or your forgiveness."
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There's a break in the tension when he trails off. He thought... what? She wants to know, but as it turns out, she has too much pride to just ask. Because he's right. It doesn't matter.
"Good," she says coldly, rising to her feet. "I'm glad I don't have to explain why I won't forgive you." Her gaze drifts to the temple entrance, and she looks like she's about to leave.
"You're despicable. But..." she continues in a rigid tone, as if it's a struggle to actually say the words, "thanks, for telling me the whole story."
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"It is what it is," he says.
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"...Yeah. I suppose it is," she says, then starts walking to the temple's exit. She's got a lot to mull over now, but first, she has a rabbit to find.