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

[gynvael]

It's a hit or miss, whether she will know him in turn. Once or twice, he's gleaned memories from someone who received none in return. He sees it, though. The recognition that flashes across her face.

A pause lingers in his gaze. Like her, he hasn't any idea what she saw. Like her, he contains too many things in his head he would not wish on anyone.

"Could say the same for me." He sighs. Picks up a loaf of bread because they're at the market and he needs to eat. Not as though he's been sleeping; the least he can do is put food in himself. "I didn't get your name."

In the memory, he means. Perhaps she got his. She seems hesitant to know at all, what it is he may have glimpsed. He gets it. He never especially wanted to talk about his shit, either; debated once or twice just telling them it doesn't matter a damn. What's there to add? Yes, that's true. They did fuck dozens of us boys up. Apologies for all the screaming.

[enduringkestrel]

“It wasn’t… awful. What I saw,” she offers softly. Apologetically, for he’d never asked for her to have a peak into his past. “You helped a boy save face with his father. Against… I think it was a wyvern? It looked similar to what I’ve seen of them in books in my world.”

She’s hesitant to know what it is he saw… but she needs to. Needs to know what horrific memory had been laid bare in his mind. What part of the horrors she’d survived did he see? “I doubt there’s many memories where you would catch my name, unfortunately.” Save for perhaps her brother yelling it in horror. Her smile is lopsided. Tired. “Cassandra. I’m afraid that I never caught your name, either.”

[gynvael]

Somehow, that comes unexpected. Geralt pauses, blinks once. "That's new."

Hasn't had that one slip through yet. It isn't the memory itself that sends an uneasiness through him; it's the reminder of what became of the boy afterwards, many winters later. Nivellen, in the snow on his knees, in the blood-soaked snow. Not really a man worth saving face for in the end, was he? Or saving at all. But he'd been a friend, for some time, until that night.

"Geralt." He shuffles the loaf of bread under his arm. His statement is not unkind, but it's blunt as is his habit. He can see the question in her eyes. "You were held captive for some time. With another."

By whom or why, the images told him little. He doesn't need to know, in truth. They was never his memories to see in the first place. Maybe it doesn't surprise him, that all of the Summoned hide some horrors in their past. More so than most.

[enduringkestrel]

And she has a name to put to the face, now. She’s glad of it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Geralt. Although I wish it hadn’t involved the both of us getting memories shoved in each other’s heads without any say in the matter.” It’s the lack of choice, as much as it is the horrors she’s witnessed, the horrors she’s endured being shown to others. For so long she had had no… agency. No control. No choice at all. And now, now that she’s finally free of the Briarwoods… now that she has something like control despite the lack of choice in coming here… it reminds her of things better forgotten. Better ignored. But she does mean it all the same. She is glad to meet him.

Oh. Gods. It had to be that memory. That part of her, laid at his feet, thrust into his mind without either of them having any choice. She nods, a small little gesture, despite the pained, apologetic, haunted expression that passes briefly across her face. “I was, yes.” It’s so easy to say. As though it had been just a cage. Just captivity. Not the blood and the torture and the grief. “With my brother. Percy.” The last de Rolos.

She doesn’t want to talk about it, doesn’t want to talk about it at ALL… but she wonders if she should explain. If it matters. She doesn’t think it does, truly. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change what happened and it doesn’t change that he saw a part of it. Witnessed it as though he were there, in the cell with them.

[gynvael]

Mm. Yeah. "You and me both."

He's resigned to it. It happened. Happened several times over, in fact. He's moved onto managing the fallout. Dealing with the knowledge that there may be others out there he might never know about who saw something from him. Something he would not have wanted them to see. It leaves him uncertain, wary, but all he can do is wait it out. Try not to think about the images that bring too many old memories forth.

In the meantime, he needs food. The house needs food. His task at hand is finding some cheese. Possibly fruit. Oranges?

"You don't owe me an explanation," he replies. He gets it. If it were him, he'd owe her nothing, too. That they were forced to cross paths in this manner was not either of their decisions. "I'm glad you saw nothing unpleasant on my part, at least."

[enduringkestrel]

That there are people who know, who have witnessed first-hand memories she would rather keep buried deep. Memories she would rather forget. Memories she’s scarcely begun to deal with. Heal from. Its… a lot. It scares her.

She can’t help but huff a soft, tired laugh.

“I know. But you didn’t ask to see that. So a part of me feels like I owe you… that, at least. Something. I don’t know. It’s… complicated.” How does she make up for seeing something horrific that he’d never wanted to witness? Can she? And maybe she doesn’t have to, but she doesn’t know how to navigate this. No matter how many times it happens. No matter how many times she’s been laid bare to strangers.

Her smile is apologetic. “I only wish I could have spared you. Shared something less… that. Not that I have many memories that aren’t… horrible in some fashion.” There are more from when she was a child. (She’d been a child when the Briarwoods came, too. But before that. When she was younger still.”

[gynvael]

He pauses, quiet for a moment. "I understand."

The feeling, he means. She might've seen nothing horrific from him, but others had, and what he'd hated most was not the invasion into his past—though that's part of it—but that he'd inflicted something on them he wouldn't on his worst enemy.

Still—

"It's all right. I promise. I'm not..." He tips his head, a half-shrug, like what he's about to tell her isn't that significant. He isn't certain how else to phrase it except to simply say it. "There isn't much you need to spare me from."

Not that it makes what he saw from her any less...grim. No one should have to go through that. Maybe it's worse to know that she'd watched her brother go through the same.

helps if I actually hit post!

[enduringkestrel]

He says that he understands, and he does. Cassandra can feel it. About more than just the feeling, she thinks.

And then he says… that. Confirming what she’d suspected.

It’s spoken simply, but she sees beyond the words themselves. To what they mean. What he means. It’s a horrid sort of understanding. What he’d seen, what she’d shown him… wasn’t something new to him. It wasn’t… unfamiliar. And it hurts her, that he’d, that anyone had gone through something like what she’d gone through.

But it makes this easier, maybe. Except not exactly. She’s not sure that’s possible. But it’s… something. Something that she’ll have to sort out later. She exhales raggedly, tension easing out of her a little, and she nods. “All right.” And then, because he knows things, has seen things about her that she hasn’t told another living soul (Percy only knows that part because he LIVED that part, with her)… something else slips out. She doesn't mean it to. But it does. “I was perhaps a day, or two, free of… that. When I found myself here.”

She’s no longer the slight young girl she was in the memory that Geralt had seen, so while she might not have stated it outright, it’s clear that she had been there for years.

<3

[gynvael]

Geralt glosses past his own admission, and her reaction to it, as though he's remarked on nothing in particular. Maybe it says something he's still picking over a vegetable stall during this conversation.

It isn't hard to put together, no, the implication of what she's saying. Between those who died and now this, he's understood not everyone in this world was ripped from the comforts of their home. But it does beg the question: what of her brother? Has she accepted she's left him behind to his fate? And how does that work, when the gap of time between one Summoned and another can span years even for those from the same sphere?

His attention shifts to her, contemplating, before he looks away again. Drops a couple of onions into a basket. "Have you found a place to stay?"

Despite how it sounds, he doesn't exactly mean it to be a change of topic. More that, after what he's seen and after what she's told him, he's found himself interested in where she might be living—if there's something she may need.

[enduringkestrel]

Cassandra doesn't quite know what to do with that question, exactly. It's too much like... concern. And it's been a very long time since anyone had cared at all about it. It feels... strange. As though there's suddenly pieces out of place. Sets the ground she's on off kilter.

She doesn't know what to do with it.

So she just offers him a little smile, and nods. "I have. Inej, she told me about Mag's Inn shortly after I arrived. So I've been staying there." She huffs a wry laugh. "Staying in the barracks would have been a very bad idea. Nightmares don't make me the best roommate." As it is anyone who shares a wall with her at Mag's (or has very keen hearing) might have heard her in the midst of them, a time or two.

ok to wrap here?

[gynvael]

Cassandra's hesitation does not go unnoticed, but Geralt makes no remark on it. If there's a feeling he understands well, it's discomfort in the face of a stranger's concern. Which, despite their shared intrusions, is what he is. A stranger.

He only nods. "No shortage of company at the inn."

Most of the Summoned have gathered there, not in the barracks. Sam spends his time bringing folk in. To Geralt, it feels more effort than it's worth—he doesn't think anyone should need to be told not to rely on those who stole them from their lives—but he knows how people are. How little they question things when it is easier to leave matters be.

He drops a few coins into the merchant's outstretched palm and shoulders the bag he's carrying. The sense that he's about to take his leave may be abrupt, but it isn't to do with Cassandra. Just how he is. He'll see her often, he imagines, if she's staying at the inn.

"Take care of yourself."