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

[supersoldier]

[He too, seeks answers; an argument could be made for a dream being little more than a dream, but in this world, he is not keen on writing it off as nothing. And after getting wind of it being shared amongst the summoned, it bothered him enough to take action through investigation -- or what little he could manage. The truth is that Sephiroth does not know where to start, but the library is a confluence of knowledge far beyond his understanding, foreign as he is to this planet. He starts there. He flips through the pages of tomes he cannot hope to have context for, pushes their spines back into place on their shelving, seeks another book. Ultimately, their pages tell him nothing.

But the library is big, and perhaps he's looking in the wrong place.

So he moves like a shadow from one shelf to another, only vaguely aware of movement in his periphery as he stalks to his next target. There is a moment where he hears the footsteps of another striding in tempo directly behind him, a purposeful gait, but he hasn't even the privilege of turning around when he's assailed without warning by images that do not belong to his own memory.

It sends him reeling, suddenly aware of nothing more than the scenes flashing in his mind's eye, and physically, it sends him staggering backward, disoriented, only managing to catch his balance through some miracle of instinctual reaction. His consciousness is ripped away into Geralt's memories, though he does not recognize them as such -- only a cold, dark room, strapped to a bed darkened with dried blood. It's as though he's looking through a lens that hyperfocuses on the boy, everything else around him faintly out of focus, other than the figure nearby who holds a syringe in his hand, and--

It reminds him of something. It's eerily familiar, and--

(Sephiroth's memories delve into Geralt's mind as an exchange, and his own are those of his childhood recollections. But they are fragmented, though not divided by time or occasion. They meld together and flow as one, as though there is nothing to differentiate the days between each other. A boy, likely not much older than the boy in Geralt's memory, sits with a tourniquet wrapped tightly around his arm, a large needle pulling blood out of his veins. A man with long black hair, donned in a white lab coat and a hunched posture administers the procedure. Another memory lances into this one, an endless routine of fighting large, impossible monsters wrought from light in the VR training room, always trying to outdo himself. Always pushing himself a little faster. That memory shatters, becomes yet one more, a retinue of individuals fussing over a medical-like procedure that seems to involve some kind of infusion, if the drip nearby resembling an IV, filled with a green-glowing substances, means anything at all. The boy is present again, maybe only a year or two older, waiting silently, patiently, seated on something similar to an operating table nearby. He almost looks bored. It is not indiciutive of the discomfort he will feel, acutely, in the next few days.)]

[gynvael]

[ The surroundings are unfamiliar, but what they hold are not: large needles, blood drawn, substances in glass bottles and vials. A boy with silver hair. It blurs through his mind; Geralt stumbles forward on instinct, catches himself on a brick wall. His head is ready to burst—

And then the ground snaps back into view, the sterile, glossy room giving way to the hot desert sun and dirty cobblestone beneath his feet.

He glances up—and stares right into Sephiroth's face. He closes his eyes for a second against the sunlight, the brightness of it piercing daggers into temple. He presses the heel of his palm into his eyes. Fuck. What was—? No, he knows what he saw. He just. How in the hell?

He steps under an awning, into some damn shade to ease the pounding in his head. His brows are knitted together. ] What did you see?

[ It doesn't occur to him Sephiroth may not have. They both doubled over. Whatever this is, it struck them together. Delved deep into the mind of another. It's impossible to mistake the boy he saw as anyone else. ]

sorry for the wait on this one!!

[supersoldier]

[He's still reeling when reality slides back into place- No, slams back into place, disorientation making his stomach roll; the sensation is so rare that he finds he cannot reply just yet, hissing out a breath and fixing his gaze on the ground beneath him. Focused on forcing the world to stop shuttering at a tilt.

A voice in his ear. He lifts a green-eyed look to Geralt, and the memory is suddenly granted all the context he needs -- if it hadn't before, merely by way of touch.]

A child. Strapped to a bed, screaming. [Syringes. He remembers that too.] Experimented on.

[Or... that would be his guess. He can only judge from his own experiences, which run disturbingly parallel with this man's. Was it him?]

Was that- you?

<3

[gynvael]

[ Oh. The breath he takes is sharp. Without thinking, he pulls his hand away where he'd meant to offer it to Sephiroth. What the fuck happened? ]

Might be. [ His answer comes rough, evasive. ] There were a dozen of us.

[ If it were anything except that—he doesn't understand. It's a memory, it lurks when he sleeps, but he doesn't think about it. Not usually. Not while he's walking about, pulling books out of shelves. It feels as though someone reached into the bottom of a dusty trunk that's not been opened in decades. (Though that isn't altogether true, is it? Ever since the queen, those are memories that've lingered closer to the surface than ever.)

He peers at the other man. A shift of his weight—discomfort rising. He was not expecting to be confronted with this before he even fucking had his breakfast. ] I saw similar. You as a child.

[supersoldier]

[He’s silent at the confirmation. It makes him uneasy in ways wholly unrelated to the nausea. His past… is no grand secret; the details of each test was likely filed away somewhere in the depths of the Shinra science department, but the generalities were never meant to be hush-hush. He could speak on them if he wanted to — but the difference is that they remained buried, kept locked under his private demeanor, and now he feels similarly to Geralt: that something’s been unwillingly unearthed, leaving him more vulnerable than before. A piece of him displayed without permission.

Hardly any fault of either. So what was it the fault of?

Sephiroth finally pushes himself up to his feet. He only wills away the lingering dizziness through plain stubbornness.]

I don’t know how, but… You saw what was necessary to become a SOLDIER.

[It’s true (as he knows it). Though some of the procedures are different than what is employed at Shinra currently, the end result is the same. Sephiroth simply underwent different testing regimens because he is still unique, somehow, than most.]

I’ve been training for a very long time.

[And Geralt, too? Geralt, and all those other children?]

[gynvael]

[ He doesn't know, either. They've been connected from the start through the Horizon, the strange ability to communicate with written words, but it's not ever been like this. He hovers, not quite wanting to risk helping Sephiroth up when he doesn't know what actually happened or why.

Like the other, his past isn't a secret, either. He doesn't much hesitate to tell people, when the entire world back home knows his kind through tales upon tales—but the details are another matter. There are things about it he doesn't share. ]

The process was only known to have any success on boys. The others invariably died. [ That's the only explanation he gives. Feels simpler than anything else. ] I had a dream the night before. The eclipse. Did you?

[ That's the only unusual occurrence he can recall as of late. Unusual for this sphere, at least. Everything here's fucking strange. ]

[supersoldier]

[Died? That is not too far removed from Mako poisoning, but the difference being that Sephiroth does not remember any other children—other than himself—to have been subjected to the process. That does not seem to be the case for Geralt; unfortunate, though he's surprised Shinra has not lowered their standards to do much the same by now.

He's silent, pushing aside the images still all-too-vivid for the sake of recalling the dream the other refers to.]

Yes. I did. Do you think that dream had something to do with what just happened?

[The magic of this world is strange and nebulous, at least compared to what he knows.]

What would the point of it be?

[gynvael]

[ A pause. It's hard to think with all that in his head, and a piercing pain on top of it that's only beginning to fade.

So he isn't the only one. He'd wager they all had that vision. What was it? A warning? A prophecy? Or an indication of something beyond the Singularity? As far as he still sees it, the monolith is only a source of magic. Not an entity unto itself. But perhaps...the amount of power it has can draw on existing entities in the world. ]

I don't know. [ If he's formulating theories, none are firm enough to put into words. He shakes his head. He remembers what Sephiroth told him, briefly, about becoming a SOLDIER. Maybe it shouldn't surprise him that's what it looked like. ] Those are memories from a long time ago. I can't see why they—

[ What. Were pulled forth? Were similar? As though one triggered the other? He's learned not to see patterns in what might be a coincidence, but. He needs to talk to others first, before he concludes anything. ]

[supersoldier]

Why they would hold enough relevance to be manipulated by an outside source.

[Sephiroth finishes that thought for him, whether or not that was where Geralt had been leading it. For him, it is a matter of the sort of memories they are, rather than why they should be brought out into the open. It is difficult not to see everything in the framework of experimentation, or that there is an inherent purpose behind the flare of strange happenings; it is simply what he's used to.

He pauses, not expecting confirmation, either way. There is the matter of what they saw, and what should be said about it — that is, nothing at all.]

What you saw of mine is no secret. But I would prefer that you keep it to yourself, if at all possible.

[He likes to share his information on his own terms. As he suspects, likely, that Geralt is the same way.]

[gynvael]

[ It's not quite the direction he was going, in large part because Geralt is more used to dealing with unexplained forces than not. Sometimes, shit simply happens. Sometimes, a giant rock grows ill-tempered and explodes a chunk of your future memories into your head overnight.

Sephiroth raises a point, though. At the moment, it's difficult to say much of anything. ]

It's not my business.

[ And his memories are not Sephiroth's, either, though he doesn't make the same request in return. He'd prefer no one go around telling the world, but he's long stopped letting himself care. Everyone and their mothers has circulated rumours, stories, about him and his kind. What's another tale about a Witcher flying about?

His gaze roams over Sephiroth before he adds, ] At least your hair's always been that shade.

[ His remark is wry, in that way where he isn't really hiding that he's deflecting from the dark truth that lurks between both their memories. ]