abraxaslogs | The Mission

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The Mission

The Dimmest Day is upon us.

The champions of Thorne seek to deliver their caskets safely to the central artifact of the Singularity. Opposing them are the champions of the Free Cities and Solvunn, who are charged with intercepting as many caskets as they can and carrying them safely back to their respective factions— but each is also charged with preventing the other from doing the same.

From across Abraxas, in the dead of night, three groups of the Summoned converge on the Singularity. What they do here will have lasting effects on the world and every other beyond it.

Thorne

Pleased to see a healthy number of volunteers gathered at the Empty Throne, Ambrose allows his champions a moment to savor the vocal appreciation of the gathered crowd ringing the courtyard. Thorneans applaud and cheer, and Frederick, previously this year's Elected sacrifice, looks beyond relieved. High above, the King and Queen emerge on the Royal balcony, and without any further warning the gathered crowd breaks into song— an ancient hymn of thanksgiving that feels very awkwardly like a prayer being directed towards the Summoned themselves.

Along with black leather sling packs for carrying the caskets and a lantern each, a group of apprentices bring forth pieces of armor, enchanted rings and circlets, all of them offered as temporary loans to Thorne's champions who could use a little aid in their work. These hold simple defensive and life-preserving spells, presumably a small hoard of trinkets kept aside from the usual Dimming sacrifice: putting them on may grant added resistance to magical attack, a boost to existing magical ability, or increase an individual's speed, strength or dexterity. Once everything is distributed, Ambrose himself passes out the caskets, taking great care to hand each one over with a stern, steady stare.

Even tapping into the emergency storage of magical energy provided by an ornate reliquary placed behind the throne, it takes the efforts of all the assembled Thornean mages together to open the portal that will deliver the Summoned to the crater's edge. Ambrose explains that due to the Dimming, they won't be able to create another to bring his champions home until the sun rises— and only then if the mission to restore the Singularity is successful. Everything rests with the Summoned, now. They must not fail.

The Free Cities

Aleksander's laboratory is exactly the kind of mad scientist with access to magic take on Leonardo DaVinci's workshop you might expect. Strange, chemically powered devices bubble and tick. Doves flutter and coo anxiously in cages. A couple of ominous metal exam tables with leather restraint cuffs bolted to them have been pushed back to the walls to make room for a large contraption that looks like a cartoonish steampunk ray gun, far taller than a man, aimed at a hastily painted bullseye target on a raised metal platform. Surrounding it are strange alchemic sigils burned into the floor. It becomes clear all too soon that this is the method of transport the champions of the Free Cities will be using to get to the Singularity for their mission. This is a very tech-heavy flavor of New Magic.

Assistants usher the Summoned towards the platform and offer a range of odd hand-held devices and wearable tech for anyone who would like a little extra boost. Alongside chemically powered lanterns, the Summoned are invited to pick up energy dispersing chestplates, power-assisted boots for increased speed or spring in a step and so on— though it's fair to say Aleksander's creations do all look like they might be more in the experimental stage.

Charged using a device some of the Summoned might recognize from Alexander's holiday experiment at the Circus of the Sciences, the transporter ray is ready to deliver the Free Cities' champions to the Singularity. Set on a timer, the device will activate a second time at dawn to generate a gateway to welcome them home with their winnings. Aleksander wishes them good fortune, ensures everyone is properly situated on the platform, and with a pull of a lever sends them on their mission.

Solvunn

By the Solstice itself, a great unlit pyre topped with a strange, crude effigy of a creature resembling a bear has been built in the middle of the town, encircled by a group of seven mages in elaborate masked costumes representing elements of the landscape around them— rocks, fields, forests and streams. But Rowan, who the Summoned have been directed to report to, is not among them. He stands by a smaller fire, uncharacteristically solemn. It is time for Solvunn and its champions to receive their blessings, though as always these come with a price.

Rowan directs each of the group to step up in turn and surrender something to the flames. These sacrifices can be small, but they must belong to the person giving them up. A garment they are wearing would suffice, or even just a lock of hair, a drop of blood, a clipped fingernail. These gifts, Rowan explains, will link each of the Summoned with a blessing they can carry with them as they travel to the Singularity.

Another mage wearing an elaborate antlered headdress bestows the blessings as the Summoned give their gifts, dipping an elegant hand into the flames and drawing a strange runic sigil onto their foreheads with the ash of the ceremonial fire— and instantly, the Summoned may feel they have received increased vitality, strength, speed, enhanced visual or auditory acuity. They are handed a lantern each and instructed to stand aside as the mages ask the gods to light their path, and once all gifts are distributed, the gathered mages lift their arms and begin to chant. A fiery tendril leaps from the sacrificial fire to the main pyre itself in a crackling arc that sustains itself there in the air, forming a doorway to the edge of the Singularity’s crater. This passage of fire will remain passable in either direction until the great pyre burns down to embers.

The more perceptive of the group may catch sight of huge, formless shadows moving at the very edge of their vision as they step through the fiery arch.

The Crater

When each faction's group of champions emerge on the other side, they find themselves delivered to the closest point around the rim of the Singularity's crater to their home faction. A few miles in diameter and several feet deep, the crater is a strangely, perfectly circular depression in the desert with the towering monolith of the Singularity itself glowing faintly visible through the dark of night at its center— and unlike the last time the Summoned were brought here, they have time to catch their breath and let their eyes adjust, if they wish. Muted and diminished, the Singularity makes no attempt to draw the Summoned to itself. To approach it, they will have to walk.

Physically breaching the border of the crater makes shivers run down spines and hairs stand on end, but it seems Ambrose was right. Rather than being yanked without ceremony into the metaphysical realm of the Horizon, the Summoned are able to make their careful way over the sloping rim of the crater, where each party will be able to catch sight of lights moving in the darkness as the Summoned of other factions climb down to the arena of the crater's smoothly featureless floor.

The desert air is cold and clear in the dark of night, sound carrying easily across the distance between the three parties. Raised on its rocky plinth, the towering statue of the Singularity beckons. The Dimming reaches its nadir as the Summoned of each faction march towards inevitable conflict.

OOC: Event #5: The Dimming

LOG: Thorne | The Free Cities | Solvunn

PvP: The Mission to the Singularity

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Inej has her mission, and that's really all she needs. She's less girl and more Wraith on this night, anyway. There are three knives tucked safely away onto her person, and a push dagger a shop owner in Solvunn had been kind enough to allow her during her first days in the city currently curled between her fingers as she stalks through the rocky terrain. She'd left her lantern somewhere near the edge where they had arrived. She can rely on the other dots of light around the area and her eyes will adjust as she moves through the night–– and she didn't want the distraction of it when she inevitably comes upon someone with a casket.

It's a long journey toward the center where the Singularity stands proudly on its peak. In another circumstance, she'd perhaps take the time to admire the thing. Instead, she only hopes she intercepts someone before they get there first. She doesn't completely grasp what it all means, but the idea of overpowering something magical... well. She can only think of the Grisha she saw on parem, the Khergud soldiers... and she cannot see a way it ends favorably.

The lack of light in her own hand makes it easy to spot a boy up ahead who has to catch his footing. She misses her special, Fabrikator-made shoes, they would make this terrain even easier to handle, but she is still sure-footed on the rocks. She can tell from his struggle it's because of extra weight. He has a casket, and that makes him her target.

It's not much further to the bottom now. A couple more meters and Ronan will be standing on blessedly flat terrain, where one wrong step won't leave him tumbling ass over head. The path widens here and he can lower his arms a bit, the balancing act unnecessary as each step becomes less hazardous. Relieved, he exhales slowly.

He's fairly confident he's made the descent undetected because no one's shot him with an arrow or a magic missile just yet. The ghost light is much more subtle than lantern light, hovering low to the ground, so maybe none of his enemies have caught sight of it. Still, he pulls a silver orb from its pouch and holds it ready in case he finds someone waiting for him when he reaches the crater floor.

There's relief in his shoulders and she can't help thinking how foolish that is of him. Who could be sure of just what may be hiding in the shadows?

She inches ever-closer on silent feet and finally, she's close enough to make an effort to lift the casket from him. Admittedly, this was never the part she was the most skilled at. Kaz was less subtle in his arrivals, but his fingers were much more skilled at retrieving than her own.

There hasn't been a sound to even hint he's been stalked the whole way down, but Ronan feels the shift in weight on his back immediately. The movement is so silent he assumes it's being done with telepathy, so when he wheels around to find a figure standing just behind him, the surprise is almost enough to send him tumbling backwards.

Luckily, he catches himself before falling over. Though his instinct is to swing a fist, getting into a boxing match on uneven ground seems like a good way to wind up dead. Instead he holds out his dreamt orb, preparing to crush it in the face of his opponent.

Inej's eyes widen when he spins so sharply toward her. Now that she's so close... she can see he's the sort that's likely a brawler. Nothing she hasn't dealt with before, but the boy's got a stature that's a little surprising.

"Why do you want to do this? What good could come of it?" She asks, voice light, but a bit brusque, in hopes that she could manage something in this that doesn't have to end in violence. She may be no stranger to it, these days, but she still doesn't wake up choosing it every day.

She's stalling. Ronan knows it, but he's not any more eager to harm her. Though he's hardly the most eloquent diplomat, maybe there's a chance he can talk her out of making a huge mistake and he can save his orb for the next poor soul to cross his path.

"The Singularity's dying," he tells her, "and if it dies, I die."

But that's only his why. Everyone here has their own reasons.

"Thorne's been keeping it alive for decades. Every year, a mage sacrifices their own life to come here and feed it. Do you think they'd kill their own people for no reason? If they didn't have to keep the Singularity alive? They've been keeping the world stable all this time."

Well, that isn't what she expected. "What?" She frowns deeply. "What do you have to do with the Singularity? How are you so entwined with it that you will die without it?" Were they all that way, by the nature of how they were brought here?

From her view, it's a blind acceptance of whatever he was told by the kingdom that he arrived in, and she can't help the way her lip curls at that, words bitten out with each syllable. "I think the greed of men makes them do unspeakable things to innocent people every day."

"I don't need a lecture about the greed of men from someone who's trying to steal a holy offering for themselves."

It may be too dark for her to see the disdainful sneer on his face, but she can surely hear it in his voice.

"Every single one of us is tied to the Singularity. Haven't you been to the Horizon? It's in our souls. And it's holding me together. I was dying until I was brought here. The Singularity restored me. I owe it my life and I'll do whatever it takes to return the favor, even if it means going through you."

Oh, she hears it alright, and it sets her on edge. And his insistence that this is somehow a holy journey sits wrong on her shoulders, too. "You are on no holy crusade, this was not a mission from gods or Saints."

"No, I haven't," she bites the words out. She has felt too uncertain of it, to wary of opening a connection to something so unknown. But she knows it cannot be avoided forever, still, too. "You may owe your life to it, but it stole me from mine." She had only just started getting things on track. Kaz had just found her parents and brought them to her, and here she was, stolen for a second time.

She presses her weight back into her heels, fingers curling against the push dagger between her fingers. He's not going to be reasoned with, that much she's sure of. She takes a step to the left, eyeing his movements as she does, trying to decide the best option to stun him long enough to get one of the caskets from him.

From where he stands, she is very much the one who can't be reasoned with. She couldn't be more mistaken in her assumption — this is a mission from God. The Singularity is the most sacred relic he's ever encountered and he's been tasked with replenishing it. What calling could be more holy, other than serving Christ himself?

But Ronan doesn't make a habit of preaching to non-believers. He's not here to convert her. In fact, if he has to waste this orb on her, she probably won't remember she ever saw him.

All he says is, "Someone's lying to you. The human who summoned you stole your life, not the Singularity."

Then she moves, and so does he. Enormous and armored as he is, his retreat hardly counts as swift, but he needs to get on even ground before he stands a chance of pummeling her... if it comes to that.

"I didn't want to have to do this." It's the last of warnings that he'll get before she springs into action, her own movements both swift and fluid.

Thanks to his size, and the weight of his load, he shouldn't be hard to knock off balance when she stretches a leg out behind him in the midst of his attempt at a retreat.

She can't let him get away with all of those caskets.

Getting down off these rocks would be a challenge even in full daylight. At night, it's nearly impossible. Ronan doesn't even see her leg until he's already tripping over it, and by then, it's too late to do anything about it.

Clumsy and top-heavy, he goes tumbling. Unable to stop his fall, the best he can do is throw his weight so that he doesn't crush the caskets on his way down. His silver orb is sacrificed in the maneuver, flung without aim as he scrambles to protect his precious cargo. The caskets end up cradled in his arms, shielded while the rest of him hits rock after rock at gravity's mercy, armor crunching with each impact.

He lands on his back at the bottom of the crater, the wind knocked out of him. It wasn't a long fall, but it was an ugly one, his bones rattled by it and his ribs aching in a way that suggests several of them might be broken. Though the armor's been a burden, he probably would have cracked his spine or his skull along the way if he hadn't been wearing it.

The landing has him feeling paralyzed regardless, but he's still clutching the caskets tight against his chest, so he's not entirely lost.

Gravity does her work for her and something goes flying. She can't be sure what it is, except it seemed to have some kind of light to it– and her mind immediately jumps to the flash-bombs that Wylan has used in the past.

She reacts immediately, tucking and rolling out of range of whatever he'd thrown her way. She lands on her haunches, ready to leap immediately into action while he's down.

With her push-dagger curled between her fingers, she goes to lift one of the caskets from him– if he tries to stop her, she'll react and punch the dagger into his side. Nothing lethal, but enough to get him to go down again and give her time to get away with the casket.

She's much too fast for him to find an opportunity to get back on his feet. He barely has time to roll into his side before she's on him again, and then the priority becomes all about holding onto the caskets for as long as he's physically able.

With all the adrenaline, he doesn't really feel it, at first, when her blade slips between the gap in his armor to puncture his side. There's a sting, like a pinch, and then there's heat. He notices the weakness in his arm before he figures out what's happened, the domino effect of failing muscles.

That's a cleaner stab than he's used to. Usually it's talons, and usually they take out a lot more of him. But then, on those usual occasions, he wakes up.

He's not waking up from this.

"You'll have to kill me," he tells her, breathless but strangely calm. As far as Ronan's concerned, he's a dead man if this mission fails, anyway. He can feel one of the caskets slipping from the pack, where he's losing his grip, which only makes him hold tighter to the others with his good side.

Inej isn't sure she likes how... calm he is about the very real possibility of dying by her hand. She has proven she will act if she has to, does he doubt her so? Perhaps something else...

She hesitates, the barest split-second of a thing, before rearing back and punching him, square between the eyes. In an instant, she shifts and sends a sharp kick to the same side she'd stabbed before. All she needs is for him to drop one casket.

With the punch comes a flash of stars across Ronan's vision, both stunning and temporarily blinding him. Though it makes him hiss and inhale sharply, it's not enough to get him to drop a casket.

That comes a moment later, as her foot connects with the wound in his side. Ronan chokes out a cry as the shock of the impact works its way through every one of his nerves, and his hands forget their task just long enough for that loose casket to slip free.

"No!" he howls, but he can't grope for it without risking the loss of the others.

Inej doesn't waste a second, she leaps to grab the fallen casket and somehow, in a motion too fluid to be anything but trained, gets to her feet.

She darts away from the boy as fast as her feet can carry her with the new weight of the casket in her grasp.

Now she just has to make it back to the rendevous spot and back to Solvunn without running into any more trouble.

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The Mission

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