EVENT #7: THE SIGHT

[abraxasmods]

Event #7 - The Sight

go to the OOC event info and plotting post

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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.

Comments

INEJ · fixed

[carmesi]

[there is a world here to explore, of a cold winter night—cold war aesthetic, trying to make the most out of a small space. it's a loving family, oleg maximoff walking in through the door to greet his wife and son. there is talk among them, happy and excited.]

You said the only rule of TV night is we try to practice our English!

[the boy is loud, and wanda can hear him from the other room. she steps outside in time for her to hear him call.]

Wanda!

[and she gets to be hugged by her father, kissed on the cheek, a giggle escaping her. it is perhaps because of the war that wages outside, the dull sound of gunshots out in the streets, that her parents put affection in everything they do. there are a number of DVD tapes for her to choose, but she mentions her pick is not there. her father goes to look for it, stored inside a hole in the wall, and her mother pulls her back, kissing the top of her head.]

This is your pick, yes?

Season two, episode twenty-one.

[wanda smiles, as her father sets the DVD, and pietro follows after her sister to sit on the floor; a practiced routine, commonplace in their home.]

Always sitcom, sitcom, sitcom.

[though he complains, he doesn't really hate it; his smile is just as big as hers as the episode begins, exciting and thrilling, funny in its own right. wanda giggles, looking back at her parents who sits so lovingly together, an arm around each other. pietro knocks his elbow into her, and she knocks it back, her eyes back on the tv.

suddenly—the music and giggles get drowned out by an explosion. the power goes out, the rumbling of bombs, the whistle as they fly overhead. parts of the apartment burn, there is rubble and dust where her parents were. the girl looks shellshocked, looking around her, in disbelief.]

Wanda!

[it's her brother, grabbing her arm, pulling her away from the second bomb that falls directly into their apartment. the red dot on it comes and goes, stark industries, etching itself in her eyes as brother and sister hide under the bed.]

...by the end of the episode, you realize it was all a bad dream. None of it was real.

[she reaches her hand forward, and nothing happens. nothing, is the key; the bomb doesn't go off, but it remains constant. tick-tick-tick. waiting to go off; the wind rings in her ears, the building moans under the pressure of its broken infrastructure, falling apart. there is yelling, fighting, the shape of her parents under the rubble.

an older voice, an older pietro, speaks.]

It doesn't go off. Just sits in the rubble, three feet from our faces. [a narration, a story retold to ultron.] We were trapped two days.

[the kids talk together, in their own foreign tongue, argue, within their fear, but have no room to fight, the shock settling. wanda speaks, older now too, standing beside her brother as ultron looks at them.]

Every effort to save us, every shift in the bricks, I think: this will set it off. We wait for two days — for Tony Stark to kill us.

[the noise and the memory fades as two young siblings, holding onto each other, small whimpers as the adrenaline wears off, tears in their stained faces.]

[shadowthief]

[Inej stands in the center of the room. This is not the first strange jaunt into someone's memory she's had since this strange occurrence has started happening, so it's slightly less jarring than it might have been otherwise.

The family, close and caring, teasing and loving, reminds her of her own. Makes her heart ache for the parents she'd just been reunited with after three years of not knowing where to even try to search for them.

She doesn't understand– TV and sitcom and episode– but it seems like a nice moment. Family spending time together in what looks like a rather bleak world on the outside.

(Aren't they all? she thinks bitterly)

And then it's over.

Everything is chaos.
An explosion–
the lights are gone–
flames and dust and rubble.

Inej finds herself standing in a tragedy of a stranger– which is the Summoned? The boy? The girl? One of the parents? The dead can live again here, she knows, because Matthias was here for a short time.

As she tries to decide who it might be, the scene fades. Her head is pounding, but she's no stranger to pain.

Her eyes land on the woman who she now believes the memory must belong to.

For a long moment, she's frozen, unsure of what to say. I'm sorry isn't something the Suli say. Not of a need for amends, and not of tragedy they cannot solve.

In her stumbling, she reverts to her faith; signs across herself and mutters a prayer to Sankt Demyan before addressing the woman: ]

Saints be with you.

[carmesi]

[it is not unusual to be approached by other summoned while in the horizon. it's wanda's fault, really, if she had any complaints about it, sitting close to the shore of the lake of her small world and not in her cabin where she would expect an ounce of privacy. she hears the sound of someone approaching her and turns in time to see this—very familiar woman, actually, sign herself and offer her four words of greeting.

it sounds more like condolences than anything else.

there is a frown on wanda's expression for a moment, before she washes her hands on the cold lake waters and rises to her feet.]

Sorry, do I know you?

[there's the familiarity that wanda can't quite trace just yet.]

[shadowthief]

No, I– [She shakes her head. How do you tell someone you just fell into some memory from their past? After this has happened so many times, she'd think it would get easier. But. Well. Maybe it shouldn't.]

I think I saw something... something that happened when you were young. [She pauses and offers: ] My name is Inej.

[carmesi]

[it takes no time at all to connect the dots. with what's been happening with everyone's memories, it makes sense that it would be only a matter of time before some stranger shows up before her and expressed knowledge about some intimate memory she would be unwilling to so openly share.

there's a soft sigh, accepting of this, and a tight smile.]

It must not have been good.

[considering the way she had introduced herself, and what wanda knows of her childhood. the name, though, inej. why does it sound familiar to her?

it beats around her head for a moment before— ah!]

You're Jesper's friend? The one who moved to Cadens for him.

[shadowthief]

It was... a bomb on your house. You and your brother- [It was such a terrible thing, and she hasn't even completely processed what she'd seen yet. She's connected the name 'Tony Stark' to the man she first met in Solvunn, and has since met again in Cadens, but she can't reconcile it with the man she's met. He didn't seem like the sort to throw bombs at children– how–

Her eyes widen, just slightly, at the assumption. She isn't used to being recognized in this way. Leave it to Jesper...]

I am. [She nods a little.] He's talking about me, I see.

[carmesi]

[oh.

that memory. it's not one she wants to be particularly open about, worried about old wounds that may come to the forefront of her pain should she start thinking about it. wanda is glad that she didn't get to see it from an outsider's point of view. she has certainly repressed a lot of it.

instead, she focuses on another bit of their conversation.]

He had mentioned you were in Solvunn. It came up.

[when wanda had said that she was in solvunn, too.]

[shadowthief]

[She doesn't blame her for not pressing further into that thread of conversation– Inej hasn't enjoyed having her own trauma's pulled to the forefront as they have been during all this, either.]

I was, for... I think about two months? The timing of the Summit happened almost immediately after I found that Jesper was here.

[carmesi]

It's very fortunate that the Summit happened, then.

[it would have been rather horrid, otherwise, to not have the chance to move where your loved ones are. wanda herself hasn't really been too torn by the idea of being separate from those she knows—from sam, peter, bucky—because she thinks this solitude, this departure of fellowship, while in solvunn is more than necessary for her.

she stands now, walking over to inej.]

Would you keep what you saw to yourself? [those memories, of losing her parents, it's an intrinsic part of her identity. she doesn't want it to be some gossip mentioned about.] It — isn't worth sharing.

[shadowthief]

I thank my Saints every day for it. [It rolls off the tongue very easily. This is not something she is ashamed of or embarrassed to admit.

Inej was preparing to map out the journey and go on horse, but everything lined up just right to make it as easy as signing her name to her new faction. At least this didn’t feel like an indenture. Not yet.]

Oh— of course. [Desperately, she grips the older woman’s hand between both of her own.] I would never breathe a word of it.

[Just because she knew, did not make it her information to hand to anyone else. Inej knows all too well how important it is to be the one that hands parts of yourself to someone else to hold.]