abraxasmods: (Default)
ABRAXAS MODS ([personal profile] abraxasmods) wrote in [community profile] abraxaslogs2022-04-16 10:46 am

EVENT #7: THE SIGHT

Event #7 - The Sight

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.
enduringkestrel: (pic#15563092)

[personal profile] enduringkestrel 2022-05-13 04:17 am (UTC)(link)
Gods this is all… so much. Cassandra has kept all of this, all that she feels, all that she’s gone through, buried as deep down as she can. She hasn’t had a chance to… heal, to come to terms with it all. It’s only just happened, she’s only just found herself free, out from the Briarwoods control. It’s all so… new. And she doesn’t even know where to start. What to do.

And then this place, the Singularity, has laid that all bare. Exposed her deepest, darkest, memories. To people she scarcely knows. They know her, in ways she doesn’t know what to do with. Have seen things she hasn’t even told her brother.

Percy knew, some of it. But he hadn’t been there, all those years. He escaped. He left. (He left her.) He didn’t understand. Couldn’t, almost. But, somehow… Inej can. Does. Understands in a way that isn’t fully possible if you haven’t gone through such suffering. And it breaks her heart for what that means.

She hasn’t cried, not really, since that night she saw her family hung from the Sun Tree. There had been tears in her eyes, sometimes, after a particularly harsh punishment, when she was alone, and that night at the ziggurat, when she had been fighting her brother and his friends, but she hadn’t CRIED. Not like this. She hadn’t let herself. Hadn’t allowed the Briarwoods to see. To be told that she’s allowed to cry, to be hurt, to be angry… that it’s all right for her to feel this way… and that she might not have to carry it alone is… overwhelming. She shudders, trying to breathe through the sobs, ashamed at how desperately she’s fallen apart.

“I was kept there for over five years,” she murmurs softly. What is one more confession when she’s seen one of the more horrific memories of her past? “Trapped in the castle that had once been my home. Under their control.”
shadowthief: (Searching)

[personal profile] shadowthief 2022-05-17 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)
"Vidim ja te," she mutters softly in her mother tongue before echoing it again in a language she can understand, "I see you."

She doesn't move or pull away, she lets Cassandra have this much-needed moment of just letting herself soak in all of the brokenness of everything. To crack open so completely like this takes time, specific circumstance, and trust. Inej will not break that, even if it was somewhat unceremoniously thrust between them by forces out of their control. In a way, it becomes even more important to not pull her out of this unfettered breakdown because it was not her choice to give it in the first place.

"Five years..." she breathes out, closing her eyes. "is a very long time." She very specifically does not utter any apologies. Cassandra will find no I'm sorry's from Inej, because her people do not use the words. The way they keep appearing in her direction over the course of this forced sharing of memories has only shored that up in her even more. She isn't sure how those words have any meaning to any of them with how astoundingly easily people have handed them over to her.

She smooths a hand through the other girl's hair before finally pulling back just enough to look at her face again. "It will take time. We don't heal as quickly as we'd often like... but I think this, unfortunately timed and unchosen as it was, was a good start."
enduringkestrel: (pic#15563060)

[personal profile] enduringkestrel 2022-06-08 12:36 am (UTC)(link)
That there’s no apology makes it easier, somehow. She’s not sure she could handle hearing the words ‘I’m sorry’ or any variation. She’s already… destroyed. Broken open. “That was only the beginning,” she murmurs, before immediately correcting herself, “no, it started before that, with the murder of my family, the days and days of torture, but that, seeing the tree, my family’s bodies. was the first time I was truly alone with them. Abandoned by –“ and her throat closes up briefly, the grief and horror and almost choking her. Abandoned by my brother.

The hand smoothed through her hair almost undoes her all over again. It’s been so long since touch has brought anything but pain. “I never had a chance. To even begin. To heal. To come to terms with… anything, really. My family was dead and then I was abandoned and their prisoner. Forced to live as part of their family. Controlled. Used.” It’s difficult to look Inej in the eyes, the shame welling up in her chest, the shame, the self-hatred. She doesn’t even know who she is, now. Not really. She manages to, though, and manages a small, tremulous smile “But I hope so. As much as I despise the choice in sharing being taken from me.” Then again, she never would have chosen to share… anything.
shadowthief: (Saints)

[personal profile] shadowthief 2022-06-08 11:33 am (UTC)(link)
Inej has no words to offer at this. She was stolen away from her family, surely thought lost forever, or dead, but to see them on display like that? Paraded to it like it was a gift? The whole thing makes her heart ache, makes her stomach twist. She pulls her arms just a little tighter around the other girl, it's all she can offer.

"You have it now," she murmurs softly into her hair. "All we have here is time..." She resolves now to put Cassandra in her prayers to her Saints.