abraxaslogs | EVENT #7: THE SIGHT

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EVENT #7: THE SIGHT

Event #7 - The Sight

go to the OOC event info and plotting post

The night before APRIL 18, your dreams are disrupted by a vivid image of the same eclipse that occurred last month. The black sun seems to be an endless void in the sky, growing ever darker - until it suddenly opens into an eye that stares straight at you.

When you wake up, much of your night seems a blur except for the vivid dream of that eye. Whether you find it unsettling or try to ignore it, the image is something you cannot get out of your mind. If you ask, you will discover that none of the locals of your faction saw another eclipse. Speak with your fellow Summoned, however, and you may learn that while there was no eclipse that formed over the world, you were not the only one who had this dream.

Of course, dreams don't need to mean anything. You can't feel or see any immediate effects, and nearly everyone around you is going about their day as usual. Maybe you should do the same.

The Awakening

It might happen that very morning or a day or two later. You could be discussing the dream with a fellow Summoned or perhaps you simply brush shoulders with them as you walk by. Whatever it is, as soon as you make brief physical contact, one of you is struck with a sharp pain in your temple that grows into a terrible headache. It's disorienting and painful as the world around you shifts to someplace you may or may not recognize. Like an old film reel, you watch the events of the past play out before you: the past of the other Summmoned. It might be something they would rather hide, a moment of failure or despair, or something they are immensely proud of and brings them great joy - or even a jumble of several images over the course of a person's life. But you see it as if it were real and right in front of you all the same. When you come to, you'll likely find yourself on the ground or bent over, possibly with one or more people around you to see if you're okay. It'll take you a bit to gather your bearings, and the subsequent pounding in your head could last from minutes to hours.

Or, maybe you aren't the one who receives the vision. Instead, as you watch, another Summoned might grasp their head and crumble in front of you. They may go silent or groan in pain. They'll be impossible to shake out of their stupor until it's over. If you ask what happened, they may be inclined to tell you the truth - that you, you were what happened to them.

Or, if your Arcana signs happen to line up in a specific way, you'll see each other in the shared memory itself. You may also find that for certain Summoned, you can help soothe the effects, calm their emotions, or help draw them out of the memory before it consumes them for too long. It's not entirely clear what determines which effect, but one thing is for certain - within each memory, every Summoned as they appear in the past seems to wear the mark of their Arcana somewhere on their person.

For some, they might experience this only once. For others, they might experience it multiple times: with the same person, with several other Summoned, or with a different memory each time. Over the next 7 days, you'll find the Summoned around you are all receiving a glimpse into each other's past, as if the Singularity has awoken an eye within each of you.

Flee for the safety of the Horizon if you want, but you'll find that in there, it's much the same. In fact, inside the Horizon, the other Summoned don't even need to be anywhere near you - just existing in the Horizon space itself together will be enough to possibly set off a headache-inducing vision.

The Factions

What has occurred between the Summoned will not go unnoticed within the factions. While it's difficult to say how faction officials have picked up what's happening, it'll be obvious they do know.

In THORNE, characters will be asked to remain in the castle walls until further notice. Characters will not be allowed to leave the castle grounds, not even to go into the surrounding city, and anyone who is already outside will be requested to not leave again as soon as they return. If asked, they will be told it's for their own safety, given the Singularity is behaving unpredictably and the Summoned have a unique connection to it. Soothing potions and healers are on hand to offer assistance, if anyone is particularly suffering from ill effects.

In the FREE CITIES, characters will find the army by the outposts show more activity than usual. A higher number of guards will patrol the streets throughout the event, particularly in areas frequented by the Summoned. Anyone who publicly and visibly experiences the effects of the memory share (pain, doubling over, etc.) will be offered assistance by the guards. They are generally there to help, but they are also there to maintain order and ensure anyone behaving erratically due to this incident is properly contained. This might include confinement for a day or two if anyone is especially posing a risk, but no one will be punished except in the most extreme cases, as the locals are aware this is not within the control of the Summoned.

In SOLVUNN, the locals will be watching what's happening with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity. Host families and neighbors will be on hand to help with charms meant to offer protection, as well as general care and assistance (soup, blankets, and so on) if your character seems to be especially under the weather or afflicted by the event. Towards the end of the event, more elders and mages will be out and about to check up on the Summoned to make sure they're doing okay. If asked, the mages will say they aren't sure what's going on, but that they are currently divining with the gods and hope to have a definitive answer soon in the upcoming days.

None of the factions appear to be doing much more than keep a watchful eye on the situation - but as the week comes to a close, officials will start making a decision as to what they want to do and how to handle the Summoned who have demonstrated this unforeseen connection to the Singularity.

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Jesper doesn't know what the hell is going on but he knows it's giving him regular headaches and throwing him off his game. Although, if he's being honest, there is an unbearable amount of curiosity in him that also is fascinated. Still he's come to the Horizon for a break from being nervous around people, thinking going to see Mat might be the easiest option. What's more soothing than being around his fellow Wheel and lover? They can talk about the nonsense going on.

He knows exactly where Mat's domain is obviously and heads there, wondering if things have changed, they look a bit different. He walks into the front hall and glances around.

"Love, you here? It's Jesper, are you all getting the same, oh fuck." It's toward the end of the sentence he feels that headache begin. Guess the Horizon is not in fact safe. Jesper manages to stumble over to the side and sit down with his back against a wall, suffering intensely.

They're in an open field. Jesper's confused to find that he actually seems to be in the memory. Not that the Mat in it sees him or anything, but that it's not the same as looking from the outisde. They're the same sign after all. This is new. He sees the structure and frowns, walking up to the Mat in the memory.

"What's this?"

He speaks up in the memory, surprised he is able to exist in it, somehow.

Oh.

Oh hell.

Mat's not sure, exactly, what's happening. But he knows what this is. It was only a handful of months ago. He swallows thickly, not prepared to be confronted like this.

And he's not alone. Of fucking fuck. He scrubs a hand over his face, watching himself, feeling the same things he'd felt as he stood in front of the Waygate. Fear, self-loathing, guilt, and a desperate desire to continue living.

"This is the last thing that happened to me before I was yanked into Thorne."

Mat - actual Mat - is behind Jesper, dressed in his black and brocade jacket and fancy boots.

Now they can hear voices from the open Waygate. Calling for Mat, desperately calling for him. It hits like a knife all over again and that suck guilt churns his stomach. But it had been the right thing to do...hadn't it?

Jesper turns to see the Mat he knows; handsome as the memory one is, it's not the one he knows, Jesper can tell. Oh, right then. This doesn't seem that bad, it's strange and all, but then he hears people saying Mat's name from what, the structure? Is it a gate? He tilts his head curiously and goes over to his Mat. He can tell he's upset, so he takes his hand, threading their fingers together so he knows he's alright.

"Whatever it is, it can't hurt you now, love. You're safe." Jesper can't really tell what the problem is, but he is fairly quick to reassure others. He's quite empathic, all things considered. "It's okay."

The comfort is welcome, but wholly undeserved.

"Thank you, but..." Mat shakes his head, wanting to look away but unable to. "I was the one who did the hurting, this time."

He can hear them. All of them. Pleading with him, urging him to move. But the Mat of memory doesn't. And the edges of the open Way begin to close, Mat still unmoving. Looking away from it, turning away from it. Away from his duty, away from perhaps ensuring the world continued...

But would it have really gone that way? He doesn't think so. Hadn't then, hadn't been willing to take the chance. Better a coward than the man who breaks the world.

"I swear I had good reason."

Jesper understands regrets. He has a mile-long list of his own. He's done a whole lot of very questionable things in his short life. So he knows guilt and regret when he sees it. He lifts Mat's hand and kisses his palm, gently, trying to ground him back in the here and now and not the memory. "I believe you."

If he's learned anything about Wheels, it's that they're all high-spirited fun-loving people with a lot of baggage. So Mat's friends are between the gates and he didn't go? He thinks. Did he leave them to die? That would be pretty rough. That's how far dark Jesper's mind goes.

"What happened?"

The gate closes shut, winking into nothing. There's only the plain, the stones, and Mat. Who turns away and begins walking towards the woods.

The memory fades, the two coming back to themselves in Mat's domain. He's shaking, a bit, and that sick feeling remains.

"It is...a very, very long story."

With a sigh, Mat pulls away to sit on a nearby log. It's peaceful here, but responding to its master's mood, dark clouds are sweeping over the sky.

"Very short version...there is an extremely high chance I am actually a very powerful channeler, and am in fact the subject of prophecy come to either remake or destroy the world. And as there is an equally high chance I would fuck it all up and get everyone killed..."

He shrugs. Light, it sounds ridiculous broken down into the simplest bits like this.

"I said 'no' to fate."

Jesper doesn't plan on towering over him so he sits on the log too, keeping a supportive presence for his friend. He whistles when Mat mentions the prophecy. "That's a lot of pressure to worry about." Jesper is glad there were no prophecies involved with his life, he would absolutely mess it all up and pick the worst actions leading there.

"Well, if it's fate, you would've gone, because you wouldn't have been able to turn away. Fate's predestined, yeah? So everything that was supposed to happen, would happen." It's not exactly a common thing where he's from. One could say that Alina Starkov's existence was a prophecy or fate, a Sun Summoner had been claimed to be destined to exist, but so would her death then. Other than that, it's really just people making choices.

"Maybe. Fate doesn't mean written in stone, just how things ought to go. I think." Mat buries his face in his hands with a sigh.

"I was never a philosopher, I never cared about any of that stuff. It was all things that happened to other people, far away. Until it happened to me, right at home." He rakes his fingers though his hair, all nervous energy.

"One day I'm just Mat Cauthon, that mouthy shit-heel most people either can't stand or pity, then I wake up and suddenly it's oh, you might be the chosen one, and also the armies of darkness are hunting you and the fate of the world rests on your shoulders! People are about to die because of you! Alright, that's all the information you're getting, time to leave behind everything you know or everyone in your village is going to die!"

It had been a lot. And not a lot of time to process it. Any of it.

"None of it was bullshit, either. Said army of darkness attacked my village the night before I left."

Jesper's already seen enough, no sense in keeping anything from him now.

Jesper knows what nervous energy looks like too and how it's not easy to soothe it, so he just sits nearby and lets Mat get out what he needs to. There's no judgment coming from this end, as if he would have any leg to stand on, although the one thing Jesper never did was leave his friends. But everyone has their own bad moments, and Mat's probably not done Jesper's worst ones. He can tell this is a haunting experience.

"That fast? Damn." Jesper has no idea what he would do. Probably roll with it, as he does most things, but mentally, that can mess with someone. Even people used to shrugging things off. "So you didn't go with them because you thought you'd mess it up?" Seems perfectly reasonable if very flawed logic to him!

"That fast."

And Mat had done his best to adapt and accept it, but...well. His little adventure with the dagger from Shadar Logoth had interrupted that process.

"Mess it up is putting it mildly. I might've destroyed the world. Not about to take that chance, not then and there." Either he was the Dragon and he'd avoided ruining everything, or he wasn't and it didn't matter that he had stayed behind.

"Suppose it doesn't matter much now, anyhow. I'm safer here. Everyone is. And you can't tell anyone about this, Jesper. Very few people know."

"Know what, that you could be the chosen one for good or evil back home? Why would anyone care here?" Jesper figures they've all more or less restarted their lives here, for better or worse. Whatever Mat was fated to do, he can't do it here, so it's null and void. He reaches out to take Mat's hand and squeezes it.

"If those are your friends, they know you, and they'll understand eventually." Jesper for all his flaws has managed to surround himself with people who get him, and see his problems head on. He can't imagine Mat's friends knew him so little that they couldn't understand why he'd struggle with all this pressure on his back.

"I've got powers. Not end of the world powers, probably, but just having them doesn't make you anything other than special."

"Well at this point I don't think there's any 'could' about it. I...I can channel. Most men can't, where I come from. And if they do...it doesn't end well, let's just put it that way. But I am stronger, in that sense, than most. There's an Aes...a mage in Thorne, who's helping me get it under control, thinks she can keep everything safe. Including me."

Whatever Yennefer calls herself or is called at home, he simply thinks of her as an Aes Sedai. She acts like one. And while he hasn't seen any demonstrations, he assumes she's very powerful.

He does appreciate Jesper's comforting, even if he doesn't feel particularly comforted. It's not the other man's fault, Rand hadn't ever been able to soothe him over this either.

"And everyone I talk to about magic and all of that...they don't understand why it terrifies me and why I'd give anything to not be special. And dangerous. Because I am dangerous and I do not have very good control. So I'd just rather keep this very quiet. You know, my good friend Anakin knows, and the Lady Yennefer know. That's it. But I mean it, Jesper, this is not a fun thing for me. At all. It's better here, but..."

Mat sighs and rakes back his mop of curls with both hands.

"Look, back home when I just suspected I might be able to channel, I made my best friend promise to kill me if it turned out I could. And everyone who finds out just tells me I should be happy with my powers, I shouldn't worry, it's not that dramatic...but it is for me."

Because he cannot handle another conversation where someone tries to point out that he should be excited and pleased with his abilities.

Jesper listens to him closely without interrupting, and something in his stomach sinks because he understands, he does. He feels like he caught his breath at one point and didn't realize it, slowly nodding his head as he tries on his end to figure out how he wants to reply.

"My mother died using the power we shared. I was a child. She always went on and on about how it was a blessing." And Jesper thinks in some ways it is. The thing is, he's never actively told someone these details. He shared the memory with them this way, so people have seen his mother and her death, but this is Jesper actually saying it out loud. Not simply experiencing it or being forced to relive it.

"What we can do, she took poison out of the blood of a local girl, and it went into her. She slipped into a coma and died, just like that." It's difficult for him to be serious about basically anything. But Mat deserves some kind of genuine response, some honesty. Jesper swallows, his throat tight. "My father made me swear never to use them, that it would kill me like her. So I didn't."

Jesper wishes that was the end of it, because it would be nice if it was. And then he never used his powers again and it didn't matter! "When we don't use our gifts, it makes us sick. Most of the time, people look actually sick, but for me, it made ... me sick in the mind. Or, I don't know, I ---" He rubs a hand to his forehead. These are the parts that still get him with shame. "I became an addict to gambling and violence and adrenaline. I can't stop, even now I'm so hungry for it. It's like an itch under my skin. I can't stand still, I can't rest."

There is a reason why Jesper always seems to be in movement, it just seemed like one of those quirks of his, but it's a nervous energy, sometimes exhausting. If Mat's showing some of his issues, it's being mirrored back. "I lost my father's farm to get gambling money, I nearly got everyone killed, and despite all that, despite being strung out and my worst self, I still get a little sick just thinking of using my powers. Like I'd prefer the illness over being what I am."

Jesper shrugs, looking away. "The summary is, I get it. Having complicated feelings about being something you didn't want or ask for."

Mat doesn't say anything at first. What the hell can you say to that? Instead he slings an arm around Jesper's shoulders and leans into him, offering silent comfort. Some things are just too big to offer words for.

But even in moments like these, Mat can only be quiet for so long.

"Using our powers is what makes us sick in the mind. More scared of that than anything. I'm sorry, about your mum. She sounds like she was a good woman. My folks...they don't know about me. Can't imagine what they'd do if they did. They'd both rather be at the bottom of a bottle than be a father or a mother. I don't think they even like each other, my old man fucks around right in front of us. In front of everyone. Bastard's never had a job in his life, my mum just puts up with it and drinks alone...they'd probably have just booted me out."

He understands complicated families.

"Looks like we're both on the same horse, in a way."

Jesper appreciates the comfort, leaning into Mat, lifting his hand to run through his tousled dark curls affectionately. He's always easy with his lovers, casual or otherwise, soft-hearted when it comes down to it. He was lucky, listening to Mat, he had two parents who loved him very deeply, even if that love turned harmful in its own way.

"That's shit, I'm sorry, love." Jesper caresses his hair comfortingly. "But serious question, are you sure that is the truth, or is it the truth you've been told? Because there are people who genuinely think, after being told for generations, that people born like me are inhuman and monstrous. We just look like people, but we're not, that's how they're trained." He thinks of Matthias, who was a real stick in the mud, but it's impressive how love managed to pull him from that type of brainwashing.

"When you use magic, do you feel sick in the head?"

"It's the truth. It's not just something that's said, it's something that's seen and known. I've seen it myself. A very, very powerful being cursed the source of all...magic. No one's ever been able to fix it, and ever since, men who channel go mad."

Without fail. There's nothing that can be done, at least back home. Mat doesn't know how different it is, if drawing from a clean source will make a difference, but he's hoping.

"There's...things that can be done, but really there's no happy outcome either way. We're more pitied than feared. But I have someone in Thorne who's helping, who's sure that she can help me manage it without losing my mind. I only found out I even could last month, I just suspected for a while. I've only channeled since my first spark in Lady Yennefer's presence. Don't trust myself otherwise."

He trusts her, though, at least in these matters.

"Only men?" That's odd. Something genetic? It would have to be. "Are you sure it's you channeling like in your world, and not that people can use magic here even if they had none in their world? I found myself with a new power recently." It was a surprise but not a bad one, although he did almost run himself very quickly into a wall, which would have been bad!

"I'm not questioning what you know about your own body, mind you, just trying to find out if it could be something safer than not trusting your mind. If the magic is from this source, you should be fine, right?"

"Yeah, it's...it's a long story that I just don't have in me to go through right now." Mat offers an apologetic look to Jesper. He just isn't it up to it at the moment, it's so much and needs to much context filled in to make any sense...

"But no, I can do some of the magic like the mages here, it's different. Feels different, comes out different. Like I'm manipulating something outside of me, not in. Channeling...I can feel it inside. Through me. I dunno how else to put it. The way it manifests is around my age, and it just starts randomly. Without warning or trying. And it did. Two of the big three - usually it's setting something on fire, moving something without touching it, or freezing something. So either there just happens to be some unrecorded version of magic here that works exactly like magic in my world that I just so happen to have randomly figured out without trying or knowing that also manifests exactly the same, or it's an innate ability of mine. You're a gambler, too, which would you put your money on?"

To Mat, it's very clear which one of those is the more likely answer. What were the odds that channeling as he knows it exists here, in the same fashion, and he...what? Just tapped into it? Even if that were the case...he'd need to be born with the ability to.

"I haven't started hearing voices, though, so whatever Lady Yennefer is doing is working. So far."

Jesper nods as he explains what channeling feels like to him, and he relates, since it's similar for him. He knows what it's like to fabrikate, as opposed to when he used his superspeed here for the first time. "Or maybe it won't do the same thing to you here, in this world. Maybe that's a curse that only exists there." It makes as much sense as anything else, and Jesper is a rather optimistic person overall. Strangely enough.

He runs his fingers through Mat's hair soothingly. "Listen, you can tell me any stories you want, or you don't have to tell me anything." Jesper kisses his cheek gently. "But if you get worried about any of this, you can talk to me about it too." Mat has people here, new friends, and not being alone is essential to getting through situations like this sanely.

"I'm your friend either way, love." He threads their fingers together on one hand. "Anyone with power ends up struggling with what it'll bring out in them, if they've got a conscience." Jesper's been thinking about it a lot lately, now that he's using his powers more constantly, and knows the extent of how dangerous or helpful they can be.

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EVENT #7: THE SIGHT

Memory 7 lmk if this is cool

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TW for mention of gambling addiction!

CW for alcoholism and child neglect

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