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

[fourarmedandangerous]

Goro has seen many battlefields over four millennia of violence. Hell, his own body count would likely fill several on their own. But even be would be hard-pressed to think of a battle as chaotic as...this.

Giant leviathans sail through the sky as forces human, alien, and monstrous clash. Goro knows he is not "present" in the battle, for this is only a memory of the real thing, but...what a memory it is. He's actually a little jealous none of his battles really compare.

The flash of power and red blasts draw his attention, even in this chaos, to where Wanda watches her memory self hand the Mad Titan his ass on a platter. He can tell her opponent is powerful just by looking at him...and yet this warlord still struggles against a single human woman.

She is powerful. More powerful than Goro realized. He focuses his attention on the memory of Wanda, the intensity of her attacks, the rage in her voice, the hate in her eyes.

"You truly hated him, didn't you." Goro announces himself, striding up behind the real Wanda. "It lends you strength. But you don't let it overwhelm you." Wanda is clearly no berserker.

"What did he—" but there's no time for more. The ship's guns are turned on the battlefield,and the rest of Goro's question is lost in the cacophony that follows.

[carmesi]

Of course there would be a witness to her memories, this one in particular, and she is tense. Wanda steps away from Goro as he approaches, even if, within this memory, he can't hurt her or attempt anything, but his presence reminds her very much of Thanos.

Besides, she doesn't want to be 'studied', told what her powers are, what they can do.

As there is nothing but the echo of destruction, drowning Goro's question, the memory promptly fades, with destruction and fire overhead, of the ships getting destroyed. That would be when Carol Danvers showed up, using her powers to give them a breather from the overhead attack.

"He came to our planet, thinking he could just take from us," she grits her teeth. Thanos is gone—dead—but she still hates him. Her resentment has deep roots.

She huffs, a cynical laugh.

"He is dead now."

[fourarmedandangerous]

The memory fades, the destruction and death and chaos slipping away,leaving them in this...Horizon-space. But Goro heard Wanda clearly, the resentment, and bitterness in the way she speaks of the Mad Titan.

"Yes. It seems the one trait Earthrealms seem to share is that they are...difficult, to conquer." Goro muses almost ruefully, rubbing his chin. He glances back at Wanda when she confirms Thanos' death.

"Then he and Shao Kahn can keep each other company in the Pit." Two warlords who failed the same conquest, more or less. He raises an arm, thick finger waving to and from in thought.

"But you didn't hate him simply because he tried to invade your home." He heard what she said. Invasion is simply too impersonal for what she accused him of. "No, he hurt you, hurt you badly." And not physically either, given the way Wanda was tossing him around so badly, he'd needed to resort to such extremes just to give himself some breathing space. Goro hums to himself in thought.

"Who did he kill?" Goro asks finally, turning to face Wanda. That's the simplest answer, the one that accounts for her rage and his confusion. Did Shao Kahn know the names of everyone he had killed? Hell, did Goro? It rarely mattered. Well, rarely mattered to them.

"Not merely a friend, I think?" He carries on, like Wanda's grief trauma and pain is an interesting challenge for him to untangle. "Family, then. Did they all die by his uncaring hand, and leave you the lone survivor? Or...hm. Perhaps it was smaller than that." Maybe "everything" wasn't so much at all.

"A lover, maybe." Now that feels right once he says it. Weighty enough to match the intensity of her anger. "Yes. A lover, I think."

[carmesi]

Goro speaks a lot, but throughout the entirety of the time that he does, Wanda remains blatantly quiet even as the memory fades. She doesn't need to answer him, and she has the impression that he is trying to figure it all out himself, anyway, not quite necessitating her confirmation to roll out his theories.

He turns to her, question after question feeling like a barrage of blows. He really pushes however much he wants to get what he desires, doesn't he? Be it war, a fight, or an angry retaliation.

Red glows in her hand, it becoming a blur as she throws her magic into the air, magic that latches like chains into Goro's skin. Her hand is raised, her brow furrowed, the anger clear in her tense face. She tightens her magic, lets it coil around the thickness of his neck. She binds him, restraining his movement.

"My pain is not for you to play detective with," she says, coldly, her extended hand curled into a fist. She tilts her head. "Or do you want a taste of what I would have done to Thanos?"

[fourarmedandangerous]

Goro feels the sensation around his neck too late. He is bound by Wanda's magic as she admonishes him, held in place. He attempts to strain against the bindings but finds no success.

And that, is when he begins to laugh, even with the bindings against his throat, and at her mercy. Amused, mocking, cruel.

"In this space, it would mean little." He taunts. "Vent your spleen against me all you wish, if it pleases you. I have had four millennia to become accustomed to pain."

His eyes meet hers, and the mask of stoicism has fallen away completely. His leer is wolfish, his gaze hungry for blood.

"An exquisite feeling, is it not, Little Witch? To hurt those who have hurt you."

[carmesi]

Wanda could truly care less if he spent an eternity growing accustomed to pain. He seeks the thrill of it for pleasure, but he could never truly experience pain, not the way she has—not the kind that revolts inside her, tempers into solid rock, an eternal weight inside her constantly dragging her down. Pain that she never volunteered for.

She deigns no answer for his question, perhaps also foolishly ignoring how unusual the Horizon works when compared to the real world.

"No, not 'little'," there is anger in her eyes—a crisp kind of glacial cold to her voice. A crown forms atop her head of the same carmine color of her magic. "Scarlet Witch."

Her arms move, her hands a drawing board for the magic that latches from her twitching fingers, bursts of chaos thrown at Goro, an attempt to splinter him off exactly like how she had attempted with Thanos in the memory.

[fourarmedandangerous]

Goro's opponent names herself, a title of power no doubt, one meant to instil fear, and awe. A name of power, and just like that, a symbol of that power appears upon her brow.

A crown. How utterly fitting. Her kind always seeks to rule, in the end.

The blasts strike him full on, and oh yes, there is pain, lancing across his body, each strike triggering a rush of adrenaline. Perhaps she could unmake him...if this were not the Horizon. And these binds will not hold him here.

Straining forward even as he is struck by the scarlet energy, Goro snarls in fury, even as he chokes against the constriction around his neck. A band holding his upper arm stretches as he reaches forward, and breaks, the magic dissipating as it no longer has anything to hold onto. From there, it's easier, each arm wrenching away, each step loosening her hold. Finally he can simply rip away the only remaining shackle, pulling it from his neck and tossing it aside.

In great, bounding strides, Goro seeks to close the distance, to strike Wanda.

This! This is what he lives for. Life itself distilled down to its purest, most basic substance. No more words, just one will against another. To live is to kill, and it's in these moments that Goro never feels more alive.

[carmesi]

She grew too confident after having bound him.

Goro is quick, but he has strides to take and she just needs to swing her arms in opposite directions to create a shield in front of herself, pulsing with chaotic energy, to hold off his blows. She isn't the young girl recently plucked from Sokovia anymore; her powers have consolidated themselves since, and the knowledge found in the binding of the Darkhold ricochets still in her mind even if it's been months since she last laid her eyes on the actual copy of it.

She is no longer afraid—exactly what could touch her?

Her movements are fluid, removing the shield when his strike pauses, thinking she's got the timing right enough to send a burst of magic to sweep him right off his feet, throw him on his back.

It would be a shame if her confidence turned into arrogance, wouldn't it?

[fourarmedandangerous]

Goro throws himself against the shield, hammering it with blows. This is stronger. Brute force won't be enough, not without creating an opening for her. But an opening is precisely what Goro wants her to make.

The window in his strikes is deliberately created, bait for Wanda to try and take advantage of. As the shield comes down, as Goro knew it would, he's primed. A foot rises, and slams down upon the ground, hard, cracking the crater floor with it's impact. Enough to send Wanda off-balance, knock her spell-weaving off the proper pattern. And that's when Goro strikes hard across her upper body with a sweeping blow of his upper arm.

"Overconfidence. It has always been the weakness of your kind." Goro leers. "You sorcerers think you amass so much power it makes you untouchable...it never occurs to you how fragile that power really is. Until I have my hand around your throat."

His lower fists slam against his chest. "Get up! We haven't even started yet!" Sorcerer or not, this is the first real challenge, the first true battle he's had since coming to this world. He fought Cloud in a Cadens alleyway once, for money, and the SOLDIER disappointed Goro with how quickly he was overcome. He's seen what Wanda can do, and here, there's no reason to hold back, to not indulge every repressed violent whim he's had to keep restrained. Fighting unthinking beasts in the desert, endlessly training...no. No, it's not enough. He needs the force of destruction that cowed the Mad Titan.

Goro steps forward, teeth bared. "Is this all the mighty "Scarlet Witch" can bring to bear?" He jeers, the title dripping with mockery. "Then it was not Thanos that killed your beloved! It was your own WEAKNESS!"

[carmesi]

Overconfidence, perhaps, is a factor that would allow Goro to overtake her. She isn't a soldier with sharp instincts nor a clear goal in mind; she can't be calculating and cold when the moment is burning up in the midst of action—a range fighter, that is what she is better at. Still, she has proven before that her hands don't tremble when she finds herself stuck with her back to the wall and a sharp sword inches from her face.

But Goro does not wield weapons other than the large fists he carries on his arms. It's raw strength, muscles forged from endless battles—and it is that which gives him the edge over her, his favoring wars and fights keeping him coolheaded in his strategies.

The strike removes her feet from the ground, swept off in the force of it and into the air. Wanda would certainly have eaten dirt if she didn't use a pulse of her magic to cushion her fall, though her body slams hard against the ground regardless, her world spinning, black dots in her vision as she tries catching her breath. She's grasping at the world around her, trying to keep her focus, the sound of his demanding, booming voice the only thing that gives her a sense of the distance between them, of where he stands.

The world seems to be at a standstill. Focus, says a voice inside her head. You can't lose your cool. Images flash in her mind; Natasha Romanoff's usual side-smile, Steve walking a half circle around her. She had learned so much from them; Natasha with her combat skills, Steve with his unending support and patience.

Your own weakness!

She isn't weak—

She's sacrificed so much—

It is your destiny to destroy the world.

Chaos Magic erupts from inside her, her anger cold—focused—leaving no room for doubt. It sweeps out of her, around her, like the disintegrating pulses of magic that would remove enemies from her vicinity. All this time she's been here, having to hold everything in while the answer to her wishes lie on the pages of the Darkhold, now lost to her. This unfairness, the injustice of it all, when she is the Scarlet Witch, a being capable of anything. Wanda yells, her magic enrapturing her in blinding scarlet, her eyes aglow as she stands—no, hovers over the ground, the usual dance of her arms as she collects enough hex power to throw at Goro.

It slices skin, muscle, removes the arm he has used to strike her from the shoulder joint.

"You're the weak one," she returns to him, sending another bolt of red magic his way, to attach itself to his brain, like a parasitic worm, manifesting a flurry of attacks to his mind. Her voice echoes in his head, digging deep, you're weak, over and over. He'll believe it, because her magic will make him see it as his new truth.

[fourarmedandangerous]

He expected fire. Hoped for it, really. Horizon or not this is the first real challenge, the first worthy opponent Abraxas has handed him. The Dimming required him to be concerned with his purloined casket, the focus never entirely on the fight. Cloud had fallen too easily in the fighting pit, felled in the end by a single punch. Captain Wilson fled as soon as Goro's wrath was unchained. Unsatisfying. All of it, unsatisfying.

But this is pure kombat, and there is fire in Wanda, ice cold it may be, and he wants to stoke it, feed those flames to make this worthwhile. Who knows when Abraxas will see fit to give him another opponent like this?

He gets his wish. Pain rocks Goro's body as his arm is severed by Wanda's hex, and her attack forces him to his knees with a roar of pain. He's never lost an arm before, and even the simulation of it here in the Horizon, is more than he expected.

Because he's weak. He's weak, he's weak, he's weak. He always has been. No fight ever won on his own merits, opponents terrified of his father creating huge openings, telegraphing their moves, and even then he struggled. Every attempt to earn his father's respect a failure. Every warrior, every real warrior, laughing at their prince openly, knowing he cannot challenge them. His concubines sweetly mocking as the comfort and pamper him. Abraxas is no different, where he is routinely mocked and disrespected, by humans. Humans! And all he can do is sit there and take the barbs, the taunts, the jeering and laughter because he is weak, he always has been, he is...

He is...

Slowly the Shokan begins to struggle against the pressure keeping him down, his legs straining against the impossible weight. The white hot pain of his lost arm gives him focus, clarity.

He. Is. GORO.

And now, with this connection open and the Horizon's help, the Scarlet Witch will learn what that means.

The rush of adrenaline. The pounding of your heart in your ears. The thrill of the uncertainty. Pushing yourself to your limits and beyond, through pain and sweat. The shock that runs through your arms with each strike. The taste of blood in your mouth, feeling its heat splash across your face and chest, every drop a baptism. The look of fear in their final moments. Watching the light fade and go out. The rush of victory. The roar of the crowd. Knowing every broken, maimed corpse you leave in your wake is proof of your superiority, of your skill, your ferocity, your determination. On and on down the centuries and millennia, victory is your drink and glory your meat. Your music is the percussion of fist on flesh, the cracking of bones, the tearing of meat, the screams of the unworthy, the roar of your fire as they burn. Civilizations rise from the dust and collapse back into it, but you keep climbing, keep ascending. There is no reward, only the next fight. The next fight is the reward. It's all life needs to be. All life SHOULD be.

And it. Is. GLORIOUS.

Spitting blood, Goro forces himself to his feet, slick with sweat. He shifts back into his stance, extends his remaining upper arm...and beckons.

[carmesi]

Wanda should be more careful about what connections open within the Horizon. She should know this, especially now with the knowledge that their memories are being shared and scattered about the minds of those Summoned. The thoughts that race back to her from Goro—clearly an individual with a far stronger mind than anticipated—ring in familiarity with the memory she had seen of him not too long ago. Of his desire for conquest, of his admittance that 'kombat'—the thrill of battle, to be victorious, to conquer—is everything.

Her hands twitch and pose themselves in front of her face, trying to pull away at these images of blood and destruction from her mind. It muds up her own thoughts, mixes with the vitriol and the pain that is already there, and it's almost scary how validating and right it feels. That she should conquer, that she should descend in Chaos over others.

Releasing her arms from the tight angles they were locked in, she floats away, around him, keeps her distance while trying to split their connection in half. Goro beckons, he yearns for more.

Her expression twists, knowing what his weakness in this ephemeral realm is.

"No," she says, emphasized with wrapping him up in her magic. "I won't give you the satisfaction of fighting me."

Because that is what will hurt him most; not the memory of a lost limb, not her trying to push the intrusive thoughts of his weakness. Rather, it's his inability to have this fight that will piss him off the most.

And she smashes her hands together, the clap of it making her magic pulse against him, into him, and forcing him out of the Horizon—ejecting him by force and pushing him back into the physical realm, where all his four arms will be intact, but where she knows the dissatisfaction will hurt more than any injury he may have received here.

Wanda, too, leaves.

[fourarmedandangerous]

His smirk turns to confusion as Wanda refuses him, refuses to finish the fight. With a snarl he bounds forward, but it's too late. He is thrown, backwards, out of the Horizon completely, jolting awake suddenly with a roar in the rooms of the Sterne Estate given over for his use.

As the battle-fog lifts, Goro immediately, instinctively checks the arm Wanda severed, even though he knows the real limb is still there. Clutching the wrist of his still-attached arm, he falls back with a deep breath.

Annoying, that she chose to deny what he offered. But that was just round one, an appetizer of the real fight still to come.

He concentrates, for a moment, on the image of the Scarlet Witch, leagues away in Solvunn. Rarely does he deign to use the network, but in this case, with a particular recipient and message in mind, he will do so.

The message he sends her is brief.

I look forward to our next bout. It will be a privilege to give you a warrior's death, my friend.

The compliment is entirely sincere. Enemies like Wanda do not come about often, and should be treasured, for the memory of your struggles will burn forever in your memories. In that sense...he does consider her a friend. One who is worthy of respect.

He doesn't expect an answer, but after a moment rises. There are always matters to attend to.