lostcarnival | ⇨ EDEN PT. 4 (FINALE)

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⇨ 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!

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Lilith’s influence had lent the clones a viciousness and eagerness to engage in direct combat Eruka didn’t possess.

It did not, however, lend them any better stamina, intelligence, or additional strength. As such, when Tyki kicks that tadpole down, it’s more or less immediately punted without any ceremony, and it’s summoner reforms underneath to shout in alarm.

“Don’t—” Whatever it had been about to say, it’s cut off by an unconscious giant tadpole smacking into its face. The clones behind Tykk regroup, starting to move to work together instead of cross purposes, but the way to the prism seems clear, for now?

It's all he wanted was a clear shot, even if it meant causing a little destruction. He just didn't feel like hurting a woman if he didn't have to.

His on the moment plan works, glancing down at the tadpole smothering one of them. Instead of waiting to land, he kicks off from the air, his form wavering before disappearing in a burst of speed until it snaps down right in front of that prism. He lets his heels clack on the ground to announce his presence, his hands pressing to the glass to first try to use his power. When it fails, his eyes narrow down at the material but he gives a bright smile to a possibly conscious Eruka, "Good evening, Miss Eruka. I'll have you out in a moment." It's not his first prism so he knows not to unload his Dark Matter on it.

His hand balls into a fist, Dark Matter swirling around it in a concentrated dark tone, "I will ask you to duck though."

Inside the prism, soundless and stretching out into infinite reflections, Eruka hears nothing of what Tyki says. The witch is in slime form, half-collapsed into a pool of fluid that mostly sits at the bottom of her prison, face buried in her hands and sobbing. With the enchantment shed, she wasn't sure what was going on, but she was a witch ... which meant she could particularly feel parts of her soul being drawn out of her. She'd been crying more violently earlier, but now she just doesn't have any energy to do more than sit, and wait out what must be her inevitable doom.

Ugh ... and Tadpole Jackson isn't even here! She sniffles all the harder, though it's barely distinguishable from the rest of the liquid making up her face.

The clones move with greater urgency past their fallen members, rushing for Tyki in a panic.

"Hold it right there--!"

He feels out the prism, trying to see souls or any trace of her, but it's useless and now he has to make a choice. Tyki was always a gambler of lives and it didn't really matter now. If he kept her in there, she was going to die. It's why his fist rears back and he throws a hard punch towards the top of the prism, hoping to shatter it all together, his concentrating dark matter seeking to tear and rip, practically devastate.

As for the clones, they make their mistake by announcing their approach, and it gives him enough time to concentrate on a spell, thick masses of dark blobs forming at his back, elongating into thick and black tentacles, their spines vibrating dangerous. Anything that gets close enough is going to be grabbed for, "I told you, there isn't a need to fight over me but if you insist."

Although the prism has proven to be remarkably resilient to efforts to undo it from the inside, as it turns out, from an outside attack? It's really not much harder than punching through a concrete wall. And given the strength of the average Carnival worker? That's hardly something that needs any effort.

So Tyki's fist hits its mark, and while it won't shatter the whole crystal, it does at least break the top fourth of it off, exposing the mirrored inside to the light. The prism's exterior goes opaque and gray as Eruka's tear-streaked face is revealed, the mirrored clones grabbed in Tyki's tentacles slowly beginning to stop struggling until they hang limp in his grasp.

For a moment, Eruka can only stare. After a beat, she screams and tries to back up against the prism's wall, which mostly results in sloshing the currently-liquid part of her body around the bottom. Because that's what you do when someone knocks off the top of a crystal and you realize simultaneously it came dangerously close to knocking your top off ... and that you've been saved. Sorry, Tyki, but words are going to have to wait until she's calmed down from her hysteria.

Edited 2018-09-02 07:55 (UTC)

He looks behind him out of the corner of his eye towards the clones going limp in his grasp but he doesn't let go of them just yet. He won't trust it, not until he's sure they are lifeless, and his tentacles constrict and squeeze to hold them tighter.

That allows him to focus on his partner in the prism, looking down at her tear-streaked face. It makes him want to comfort, as he does with most women, but he doesn't get that chance. The ear splitting scream makes his ears bow backwards, disappearing into his mess of hair, and his teeth grit all the way back as his lips nearly split from the screeching.

"Miss Eruka," he nearly hisses through his teeth, his hands now crunching on the glass to drag downwards and pry it apart to give her more room for when he eventually pulls her out. Right now, with her in panic mode, reaching in was likely a bad idea, "Oi..."

To her credit, Eruka's screaming cuts off when she recognizes the voice ... though she doesn't recognize the face that comes with it.

"T-Tyki?!" They'd found time for proper introductions at some point, between skulking around Eden and rummaging through its watery underbelly, but this is the first time she's seeing him as himself, and she's understandably confused. The crunch of prism startles her out of too many questions, though, as she recognizes what that means: freedom.

"Get me out of here!" She croaks, nevermind that's what Tyki is already doing. Instead of letting her body puddle under her, she surges up, reaching out a hand for Tyki and apparently heedless that she might just scratch herself open on those edges of broken prism in her eagerness to escape.

Which would be unfortunate if she did, as she is unmistakably, well. Very much naked.

"Yes, it's me. You're safe now," he gently conveys, his fingers still crunching into glass despite any real harm to them. It's not a quick process and he's looking down at her then to his hands at work. If he hadn't given his name while traveling around Eden then there were definitely introductions once they had grouped together as teammates under Childermass' direction.

Acquisitions was always his carnival family, as far as he was concerned, they were the ones he was closest with even as much as he enjoyed Performance. It's the only reason why when she reaches up for him, her body surging upwards at some risk, does he bend forwards and semi cut her off, letting her grab onto him and not that glass. An arm even reaches down for her, grasping around her arm or midsection, whatever he can get ahold off.

"Okay, okay. Let me get rid of more of this glass first."

Tyki will find it easy enough to slip his arm around her, and Eruka sags in Tyki's grasp, the contact serving as some relief that this isn't just some hallucination -- though she isn't screaming anymore, there's clearly still some fear in her expression. She doesn't really have the physical strength to help much with the effort to free her, so her attention wanders ... right to the clones held in his tentacles.

"What are those?" she squeaks, instinctively jerking backwards. Good thing Tyki's holding on to her.

Piece by piece ticks away, dropped to the floor and shattering on impact. He's working off large sections, focusing more on the front over anywhere else. He also doesn't want her to jerk back and impale herself. It's why he stays leaned over, stressing out his back, and pulls hard to crunch glass and drag it downwards, making progress to at least satisfy a way out.

He looks back at the clones in his tentacles, their lengths flexing now that attention has been drawn to them, and he looks away to look at her, "Reflections of you, or so I've been told." Tanyuu hadn't been entirely sure herself or the others he had spoken with. "They had your, what did you call them, tadpoles?"

He looks between them, down her flat chest and over her body, admiring at the same time as investigating, and when it looks like it his enough space, he pulls her straight up. He rises in the air with his Power to Choose, his other arm joining her to scoop as he goes, pulling the edge of his coat around him to cover her backside from view.

Fortunately(?) for Tyki, Eruka's too scared and exhausted to notice the casually appraising glance-over. As Tyki pulls her out of the now-shattered prism, something very peculiar indeed happens: the clones dissolve in his grasp, motes of light that scatter like they were never solid at all.

"Tadpole Jackson..." Eruka mutters, leaning her head against Tyki's chest -- and jerking away in alarm just as quickly as she remembers. "Tadpole Jackson! He was with that ... that fae on fire! Where--"

Moving so abruptly and getting worked up just makes her dizzy, and she cuts herself off there, trying to cu. Her legs reform into actual flesh beneath her, dangling below them as he takes them up.

"We're... we're flying?!"

His arm continues to follow the curve of her body, her legs being lifting bridal style as the coat wraps around it. She's half inside of his well tailored coat, though torn from months at carnival by now at the tails, and he shrugs it off to set it over her shoulders like a proper gentleman for now. He'll just get it back from her later.

When the clones disappear, so does his tentacles, them stretching out into the air and fading all together, his arm tightening so she doesn't fall. "The fae? You mean Sir Ignatius. If I'm correct, he should be where we are going so if your Tadpole Jackson is still with him..." But he doesn't want to assume.

"Not exactly. I'm just walking on the air."

Edited 2018-09-16 00:43 (UTC)

Eruka's too tired to react to the tentacles disappearing -- there's a lot of things going on, and rapidly dwindling ability to respond to it, so she ends up just leaning against Tyki, gathering the coat to herself with one hand.

"I didn't see you cast a spell," she murmurs. It's a pretty inane thing to focus on at the moment, all things considering , but she is very tired.

Now that he has precious cargo in his arms, he's keeping his eyes forward and no longer on her body. There's the occasional bird that launches itself into the air but they are warped into aerial fights with others.

"Because it's always active, my lovely Eureka," he replies, his grin widening on his face. If that's what she wants to focus on, he has no problem with that. "Pay attention to my feet when I'm on the ground. You'll notice I barely ever touch it either unless I want to."

If she had more energy, that definitely sounds like something she ought to be freaking out about. As it is, it only draws a troubled frown on her face.

Also, cue her actually trying to turn in his arms to look down, wiggling around in his grasp.

"How...?"

She's wiggling and his arms tighten as not to drop her but allow some maneuverability on her part to turn around as she wishes. It's not much effort but he'll tuck and pull on her until she's facing where she needs to go.

He looks like he's walking, even if he could run or just push himself without moving his legs, one step after another through the air, high above the raging battlefield below.

"I've noticed, compared to most magicians in this carnival, that I have a boundless energy source," he explains. His Power to Choose was always sustained. Only once, during his time with Sans in the trailer when he was at his absolute limit, did that glamour and power of his actually fail. "It astounds me really."

Tyki will find about as much resistance as a wet noodle, and Eruka uses the time to mull this new information over.

"Must be nice..." And then, she refocuses her attention, apparently having remembered they seem to be headed... somewhere? She's not sure.

"Where are we going?"

Well, she kind of is a wet noodle wrapped up in his nice coat. At least it was warm from any wind up above where they were.

"It has it's perks," he begins, nodding his head in the direction of the temple coming up in the distance, "Just there. That is where most are harboring those seeking medical attention. It's where those gathering are usually taken. It might be best to get you looked over or at least find a bed for your to rest. The Doctor is a creep but he means well, sometimes. Just don't let him stab you with any needles."

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⇨ EDEN PT. 4 (FINALE)

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2 years later...

it's fine ... tfw you see a word cut off in your tag a week ago and have no idea what you were typin

lmao I forgot about that. I meant to ask...

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oh goddammit I put Eureka instead of Eruka. Gdi FFXIV

you'll never escaaape /waggles fingers

huff