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

the end » cadens

[shadowthief]

[This strange event taking hold of the Summoned has made it so easy to unwittingly slip into the memory of another, and each one brings that same sharp pain in her head every time. The barest brush of shoulders is all it seems to take to make it happen.

She doesn't know what she's looking at, at first, but quickly enough, it becomes very, very obvious: The decimation of war plagues this place. Battle has broken out across the land, fire burns in every direction, guns shooting off everywhere.

But it's a man in metal– she can only think of khergud, the metallic winged Grisha soldiers– and the woman she met at the museum, Diana, that are the central focus of the moment. She doesn't understand what brought them to this point, but she sees a few things in this moment about Diana:

She is powerful, but knows when to curb that power.
She has suffered the pain of a loss so true, her heart aches for it.
She is flawed, as everyone is flawed, she has sinned and committed acts she regrets.
She is good, despite her extraordinariness and what she could do.

She faltered in her anger and her grief, men were killed at her hand that needn't lost their lives that day. But at the end, she chose humanity, and that choice makes her as good as a Saint in Inej's eyes.

She blinks out of the moment, a soft, nearly reverent whisper on her lips as she makes a sign across herself.]

Sankta Diana the righteous.

[monomachy]

[The way the bright noon light around her fades to that watery, pre-dawn glow is the only sign Diana needs to know that she's caught up in someone else's memory.

The girl is small, blankets piled atop and around her, and the scene is so peaceful for those few precious moments. But dread grabs hold of her heart when she sees the hulking form in the wagon's door. She wants to yell for the girl to move, but her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth, just as her feet are stuck to the floor. She watches, just as helpless as the girl, as she's dragged away by four--four!!--grown men.

Though she cannot hear her screams, she can imagine them. Diana's heart breaks, and a sob catches in her own throat, only finding release once she's snapped back to reality. A sharp pain stabs in her temples, and a choked gasp falls from her mouth.

Her eyes hone in on the young woman before her, making some kind of sign as their eyes lock, and the recognition is immediate. Diana extends a hand for only a split second before drawing it back towards herself, unsure what to do after seeing such a horror.

War, she knows. Death, she now knows better than she can sometimes stand. But that was a kind of brutality she's never before seen, and her stomach turns at it.]

They took you.

[Her voice is rough, cracks on the second word. It registers a moment too late that the young woman has said something to her first, and her mind races for a translation for the first word. "Holy," maybe. It doesn't matter. Her eyes sting, and she curls her hand into a fist over her heart.]

[shadowthief]

[She sees her reach and it makes her wonder, which thing did she see that would make her so desperate to reach out for a near-stranger.

But it doesn't take long to put it together. The horror-stricken way she looked coming out of it, the hand over her heart, and those words. Those words pierce straight into the center of her chest.

Her voice is soft and small as she nods her confirmation, though she knows if she saw her being yanked out of the caravan and carried to the ship, there is no real need for assurance.]

Yes... that was three years ago.

I- was he your brother? The one you were fighting? [The idea of being pitted against family in that way is heartwrenching to her.]

[monomachy]

[Hearing her voice shrink like that twists Diana's own heart in a way she's never felt. It had only been a memory, so brief, but it had been so real, so visceral that she doesn't think she'll ever be able to put it from her mind. She can't imagine the girl can, either.

Diana pulls herself together so she can listen to the question, swallowing down her horror so she can answer.]

Yes. [Her voice is raw, scratching against her throat.] I killed him. A--a few weeks ago.

[It's the first time she's said it aloud. Ares had never been a brother to her, really; she hadn't even known they'd shared a father until minutes before his death. But there's still loss there, inexplicably. Something she never knew she wanted, and can now never have again.]

[shadowthief]

[Three years. That feels like so long ago, and yet it still feels like it just happened, too. No doubt in part because it keeps being dragged back to the forefront because of these visions people are seeing.

She had thought she'd grown numb to it, that she'd set it all aside, but it breaks something open in her all over again, every time. Logically, she knows she will never be able to let that day go.]

I do not know all the details... but it did not seem as though you had very much choice. He would not have stopped.

[monomachy]

[Diana knows it was the right choice, the only choice. But losing the only family she might have had outside the Amazons had still left an unexpected and deep wound, one she's worked hard not to acknowledge. Hearing the young woman say aloud what Diana herself knows is a sort of excision she hadn't known she'd needed. A noise catches in her throat, one of grief held back by determination, and she shakes her head, the movement jerky.]

He would not have.

[She had known as much, the moment they had held the Lasso of Hestia at the same time. It had shown her the truth of his heart, how deeply he had believed in his purpose and that he would do anything to achieve his goal.

She can no longer think about that battle, the losses she'd suffered, and though it is wrong of her to pry, she asks:] Did you escape those men?

[shadowthief]

[The noise that escapes the older woman constricts something in her chest, a tight vice grip of sympathy for her. She has not lived the exact scenario that Diana has, but Matthias had become like family, and he had been taken from them. Uselessly. Pointlessly. So she understands the sense of loss in her own way, and her heart goes out to her.

She sends a silent prayer to Sankt Juris to look over the battle-worn Sankta Diana and her fallen brother– it might take a bit for that association to stop, sorry, Diana.

She shakes her head at the question.]

Only when they sold me to the owner of a pleasure house. [A small statement of only a few words, and yet it says so much more. A whole different set of horrors she had to face after getting off of the ship.]

[monomachy]

[Diana was taught the history of her people, how they were once enslaved by men and only a rebellion led by their Queen set them free. That is not a pain she has shared, but it isn't something she's entirely ignorant of, either. Still, hearing it from this girl's lips, that she had been stolen and then sold like a thing instead of treated like a person, wrenches her heart in a fresh, new way that she wishes she'd never felt.

She wants, so badly, to reach out. But knows that it may not be the right move, now. So she twists her fingers into the material of her skirt, works to keep her composure.]

I hope they paid for their crimes. [Her tone makes it clear that she wishes she could have made them answer for it. She wouldn't consider herself a vindictive person, but she has seen too much horror in her own world and now this one to not feel a little vengeful, even for someone she doesn't even know.]

[shadowthief]

I doubt it. [She says softly, but there's a strong resolution in her eyes that accompany her next words. A threat and a promise wrapped up into one.] But they will. Maybe not the ones that took me, specifically, but people like them.

It was... my plan, back home. I have a ship and a crew, and I'm going to find people like them and make them pay for their crimes. I'm going to save others from my fate.

[This is part of why she's been in such a state of uncertainty and feeling so damn lost since she got here. Her purpose has been stripped from her.]

[monomachy]

[A cold sort of satisfaction blooms in Diana's heart as she hears Inej say she had planned to punish such men for their crimes. Slowly, she is learning that not all corruption comes from outside forces; sometimes, people make cruel choices all on their own. It's something she's still struggling to come to terms with, but Inej's story just serves to help solidify that new knowledge.]

May Nemesis guide you on your journey when you return. [Her tone is solemn, that of a prayer. Amazons hardly ever invoke the name of the fearsome goddess, but it seems fitting right now. She cannot think of another goddess so fitting for such a cause.]

[shadowthief]

Nemesis? [She echoes it with a curious tone. She can only assume, from the tone Diana uses: ] A Saint from your world? A god?

[monomachy]

[Diana nods, tilting her head back slightly towards the sky.]

The goddess of retribution.