⇨ 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]

"He's an odd man," Ignatius agrees, a little bit stiffly. "Though by fae standards, I suppose I am 'decent'."

[whattaprick]

"He literally chose to go mad because he thought it would help him get his wife back, so 'odd' isn't even half of it," Lambert says matter-of-factly. "And you'd still throw us all over for your Court if you thought you had to, right? Decency doesn't mean much to me."

Though, arguably, Ignatius knew that already.

[npcarnival]

"'Had to' is subjective," he says, keeping his eyes looking forward. "When comes the moment that someone 'has' to do anything?"

[whattaprick]

"In your case?" Lambert cocks his head to eye Ignatius then. "A direct order from your Queen wouldn't exactly be subjective, would it?"

[npcarnival]

"It would be, yes. That loyalty is something I've chosen to maintain. Bred for the purpose or not, the Summer Queen has never compelled me with violence or magic." He glances at Lambert. "So, at what point do those actions become mandatory, when I would be capable of refusing and facing the consequences instead?"

[whattaprick]

Did Lambert somehow stumble into a philosophical debate without meaning to? He squints at Ignatius. If there's a point being made here, he's pretty sure he's missing it by a mile.

"Look," he says, after a moment. "It'll be a lot faster if you just tell me what you think the answer is."

[npcarnival]

"I don't know," he says. "That is my answer. If that is too obscure for you, then feel free to stop talking to me at any time."

[whattaprick]

"Huh. Funny, I thought you'd be surer than that," is all Lambert has to say. The answer surprises him, that much isn't hard to tell, but why it surprises him, he doesn't choose to elaborate on.

Taking it as dismissal, he does, in fact, turn to go -- though he pauses, remembering something he'd meant to confirm.

"By the way, I meant to ask ... how often do fae get dreams?"

[npcarnival]

"That's your mistake," he says, coolly. And then, to his question: "Couldn't you ask the Ringmaster that?"

[whattaprick]

"I could," Lambert agrees, "But I'm interested in your answer."

[npcarnival]

"The answer would be the same, as dreams aren't unique to individual fae," Ignatius says, obviously a little annoyed.

[whattaprick]

"Hm." Lambert scrutinizes Ignatius a little more, then waves a hand dismissively.

"Forget it. Doesn't matter," he says, lazily. "Good talk, Iggy."

And with that, he makes his wobbly way away, probably to go brood over his boyfriend being unconscious again and worry about what state Strange is coming back in.