EVENT #8: MÆRE - IC POST (FACTION INTERVENTION)

[abraxasmods]

Event #8 - Mære (Intervention)

go to the OOC event info and plotting post or the main IC event post.

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While it is each Summoned who is the focus of their Entity's ire, they are not the only ones who seem aware of its movements. The factions will soon approach each Summoned with an offer: work with them to help contain the threat and aid the suffering of you and your friends.

Please post your top level under your character's faction heading comment. Players are completely free to organize among themselves how they wish to play these threads out. You may make a traditional top level, join or create a free-for-all thread where anyone can tag in at any time, or whatever you like. Just be sure to communicate with everyone you'll be threading with!

For any questions, please ask on our question thread.

THORNE | FREE CITIES | SOLVUNN

Kingdom of Thorne

In CASTLE THORNE, Ambrose's most promising assistant mage Jolene has been having frightful dreams of late. Though she writes it off at first as regular nightmares, when she catches glimpse of a hulking shadow walking in the Castle's halls that looks exactly like one of the horrors she's witnessed, she instantly knows that something else is at play. She immediately meets with Ambrose who opens up one of the castle's most secluded experimentation rooms, located deep underground.

The Summoned of Thorne will be asked by Jolene to assist with an urgent matter that cannot just be left to the Thornean mages. If they agree, they will be led by Jolene and her assistant mages down to the underground corridor. Guards are posted outside of the rooms for security, but the Summoned and the mages will otherwise have free reign over the rooms. Inside they will find an array of tomes, scrolls, elixirs, and alchemy sets. Though not everyone will know how to use these, they will be told that the castle may be under siege from beings unknown and that the Summoned are their only hope in coming up with a new method to expel them from this realm.

Preparation

The Summoned will skim the scrolls and tomes, consult with the assistant mages on the equipment, and use their own inherent abilities through their connection with the Singularity to inscribe and create a new spell to bind and banish the Entities from Abraxas. Some of the tomes may be a codex that requires solving a puzzle to open while there may be boxes locked by enchantments that might contain special items to aid them in their research. For the less magically inclined who wish to help, items such as scrolls, potion ingredients, and notes will also need to be gathered and organized. It will take some time and once they have what they believe is a workable incantation, they will have to test it.

While you're free to have your character succeed or fail at interpreting certain codex or refining certain spells, within reason, if you'd like to have a mod roll for you, leave a comment here with what you're seeking to accomplish and we will determine both your rate of success and any consequences!

Performing the Spell

To begin the spell, all those involved will be led to a final room at the end of the corridor that is laced with silver inscriptions along the doorway, pulsating with ambient magic. A soft whisper from Jolene will grant them access inside. There, a shallow pool of water no more than a foot deep sits in a circle in the center of the room. The Summoned will be instructed to stand in a circle inside the pool and join hands at the edges. The door will close behind them and the experiment will begin.

The mages will rub an elixir on their hands and begin the incantation. At first, the room is still and silent except for the chanting of the spell. Then candles will flicker out and the water beneath their feet will glow, gurgling and bubbling as though boiling - except the temperature remains surprisingly cool. The Entity of each of the gathered Summoned will take shape in the water, towering above the circle in liquid form. Any Summoned with a connection to it may feel dizzy when it manifests as if the image is being pulled directly out of their subconscious. These liquid forms will lash out at everyone in the circle, but as long as they don't break the line of joined hands, it remains contained.

If someone breaks the circle, the water will begin to hiss and freeze, turning icy cold. Quickly rejoin the circle before the water solidifies the Entity into a living icy statue, or risk being consumed with it.

Eventually, the Entity will explode in a burst of water, soaking those in the circle. Then the incantation begins again to bring another Entity forth. Rinse and repeat.

When each Entity is accounted for, the experiment will end. The doors are opened and the Summoned are bid to return to their chambers for some well-deserved rest. But rest will not find them. For the next 3 days, they will feel exhausted and irritable, but unable to sleep.

The Free Cities

In the FREE CITIES, all is not well in the capitol. Aleksander reports seeing the reflections of several strange beings in his lab equipment. After his prized pigeon Nicola let out a terrified squawk, he turned to Cadens leadership to report the incidents. Try as he might to track down its source, all he was able to discern was a vague resonance not unlike that tracked when close to the Singularity which turns attentions immediately towards the Summoned.

Preparation

With Marlo's blessing, Aleksander travels with a group of Summoned volunteers, his own laboratory assistants, and a small brigade of the Cadens Military to escort them all to an outpost in the eastern deserts. Flanked by soldiers, the Summoned will be instructed they are to retrieve crystals located in the mines below the outpost. The soldiers are only there to make sure nothing untoward happens to these outstanding volunteers, of course.

Those who are familiar with the different types of crystals from the science academies will recognize these are not quite the same as those carefully mined and cultivated in Cadens for hefty experiments. Instead, these are duller, and more brittle. Gathering them will take effort, and the mines are slippery and dangerous in some parts. Watch your step or risk the ground crumbling beneath you.

While you're free to have your character succeed or fail at gathering crystals at your discretion, if you'd like to have a mod roll for you for whether they will slip and fall, if any of the crystals will break, or even conflict involving another character, etc., leave a comment here with what you're seeking to accomplish and we will determine both your rate of success and any consequences!

Performing the Experiment

The Summoned will have a moment to rest as their bounty is cleaned and set up in a claustrophobic laboratory room located underground. The rest will be important as Aleksander explains that it is only their energy and connection to the Singularity that can power these crystals. What are they for, exactly? His only response is "you will see soon enough".

They will be provided these special gloves and the Summoned can take turns laying their hands on a large glass structure reinforced with steel that contains these crystals. Even those without a magical inclination will find that their life energy is enough, causing the crystals within the glass to vibrate with their touch. Hours will be spent in this small room and as time passes on, the reflections that Aleksander had glimpsed in his laboratory begin to show themselves inside the crystals. What's more, while Aleksander could not identify what they were, the collected Summoned in the room will recognize them immediately as their own Entities. Their Entities that now, upon seeing their progenitors, will try to break free.

Aleksander nor his assistants can explain how this is possible, but the Summoned will find that channeling their energy through the gloved devices may cause small bursts inside the crystals as if they themselves have some control over that environment. Phantom bindings or hands created inside the crystals will keep the Entities at bay...if they try hard enough. Should anyone falter, the surface of the crystals will begin to crack. These cracks will grow larger and larger, and characters will either need to gather their strength or find aid in those around them before the Entity bursts free altogether. The gloved devices themselves may also prove to be an issue if they break during the process - and may need to be quickly repaired on the spot, however possible.

The effort will be exhausting, but they will be rewarded in the end as the crystals grow heated, splintering the glass container but retaining the Entities within the crystals themselves, trapped inside. Researchers will hurry into the room to make sure everyone is all right and to move the crystals into a more secure container. The Summoned volunteers will be thanked for their efforts and escorted back to Cadens by the soldiers. Aleskander and his assistants stay behind at the outpost to perform further research and appropriately contain the crystals. The Summoned will experience grogginess, headaches, and some weakness in the 3 days that follow.

Solvunn Commune

In the SOLVUNN COMMUNE, those on the Council are considered close to the Gods. When Rowan is given an ominous vision of mysterious beings found nowhere known in Abraxas, it falls to reason that the Gods are bidding those they brought to this world to deal with them. He can be seen early in the morning making his way across the town in the Primary Settlement to speak with Winifred and the Council itself is inaccessible for several hours. Later that day, Rowan emerges once again accompanied by several of the Commune's mages, usually seen leading ceremonies and other religious practices throughout the year.

Preparation

The mages and Rowan will beseech the Summoned of Solvunn, that the time has come for them to perform the acts with which the Gods had brought them hither. With their special connection to the magics of this world, they can help save the Commune and restore natural order to the world by ridding the land of unwelcome phantoms. That the Summoned agree to this is of utmost importance as their devotion and willpower plays a large part in their effectiveness against such threats. The Gods will know their intent, the mages say. And it is the Gods who need their aid.

Those who agree will accompany Rowan and the mages out of the Primary Settlement into the hills around Solvunn into a small wooded area. There, they will come upon an old unsettling ritual site. Before they have time to question the statues, they will be told to seek out specific herbs and plants in the surrounding brush as well as any animal bones they can find. The woods this far out are a little more dangerous. Watch out for some smaller but still dangerous beasts, and be careful of hornets nests and mildly toxic blooms that lurk among the herbs you are meant to gather.

While you're free to have your character disturb hornets or take a tumble at your discretion, if you'd like to have a mod roll for you for whether they will accidentally brush against flowers that leave behind a rash, upset the wildlife, or so forth, leave a comment here with what you're seeking to accomplish and we will determine both your rate of success and any consequences!

Performing the Ritual

Once they have returned to the ritual site, they will be instructed to weave together baskets with their fellow Summoned by intertwining the bones and plants, after the bones have been carved and blessed by the mages. As they work, the mages will close off the area in a line of salt and painted runes. The hour grows dark and the statues themselves begin to take on the appearances of the Entities, raising an alarm among Summoned and mages alike. They bid the Summon to complete the baskets as quickly as possible. Once they are completed, the mages will take the herbs and mix them with curious liquids inside the bowls, magically watertight no matter how well they were woven. The mages then bid the Summoned to repeat a stated prayer of protection to the Gods and drink concoction, which will imbue them with the ability to face the phantoms of their own realm.

Each Summoned will take a drink and find that the statues before them seem to move. The mages hand the Summoned chalk and ask them to write the name of their adversaries on their stone flesh so that the Gods can identify them and send them away. One by one, each possessed statue must be identified and marked as the mages chant, and one by one, they seem to turn to ash. The possessed statues do not wait idly to be caught, some will fight back and need to be tricked or captured so they can be marked. Yet in the end, all will be gone by sunrise.

Those who fail to drink the liquid adequately will find their limbs growing stiff and faltering, as if they, too, are beginning to form into a statue...and that their Entity occupying a statue grows more limber in return, like it means to exchange places. Consuming more of the liquid will cure the afflicted Summoned of these ails.

In the morning the statues that were once possessed have returned to their normal state, but they have moved across the site and are caked in ash. The Summoned will find that they are starving and that their hunger will not abate. The mages will supply them with potions to help deal with the hunger and Rowan will offer cheeses and milk from his farm, though the Summoned will remain ravenous for a 3 days after the ritual.

Comments

THORNE

[abraxasmods]

Post under this comment if your character is assisting in THORNE.

See here for Thorne's participation scenario.

stephen strange | ota

[sorser]

[The process of spellcrafting is never an easy one, even with all the tools so generously provided to the Summoned of Thorne. Stephen works at a desk, alternating between sitting and studying, and standing and casting what he learns from his studies. He has stacks of books before him, other tomes spread out flat. Scrolls rolled up and scattered here and there, some on the verge of falling off of his desk; an alchemy set bubbles on the adjacent one nearby, hissing now and again when new mixtures are added.

It is work suited for a sorcerer, of course; in a way, it is work suited to Stephen Strange himself, who seeks out a solution to any given problem with full vim and vigor, pushing himself to the point of unraveling what he cannot quite grasp fully until he can, forcibly or otherwise. It means long hours, it means hardly minutes of rest allotted to him. Given the perils of sleep, and some dark thing lurking in the shadows like an ill-portent, "rest" is a liberal use of the word, anyhow.

So yes, hours pass. Exhaustion creeps in, gnawing at his focus. Stephen thumbs at a tome that needs unlocking, sensing the magic imbued in it, and flicks a wrist to crack open its spine and unfurl its pages -- only to find himself staring down at a complex, esoteric codex of magic that will need further puzzling out before he can wring anything useful from it.

He groans. Sits back down in his chair, slumping against it.]

How's your... magical mumbo-jumbo deciphering skills?

[He gestures at the book to someone nearby. If he's using terms like "mumbo-jumbo" then you know he's worn out.]

[ordinar]

[It's work suited for a sorcerer, yes, but not a teenager who until a few weeks ago assumed magic to be strictly the territory of fiction. Of course, from Wilhelm's perspective it's not the work isn't suited for him — he isn't suited for the work. The subtle difference is self-deprecation.

But when the mages presented a potential solution to the nightmares haunting every corner of the castle, a pathway back to sanity, he volunteered anyway. He makes himself useful by gathering tomes and scrolls pertaining to the topics his more knowledgeable teammates request, clearing away the texts that turn out to be dead-ends, and circulating pages of notes around the room. More than once he makes the trek up to the dining hall for coffee.

It's not especially glamorous or heroic, but it's better than waiting. Keeping his body and mind busy also keeps his thoughts from sinking too deep. Every waking minute now, he feels as if he's on the precipice of the next nightmare. As if, if he so much as closes his eyes for a second, that thing, that shadowy figure, will find him again.

Wilhelm is busy sorting through a stack of books — of the leather-bound kind that look intimidatingly important — when Stephen addresses him. Except, he doesn't realize that he's necessarily the one for whom the question is intended. It's only after an awkward length of silence that he glances up to discover that there is, in fact, nobody else in this corner of the chamber at the moment.]

Oh, uh... [He clears his throat.] Not good. I mean, I guess I've never tried, so I don't know.

[sorser]

[Haven't tried? Stephen's expression twists into something skeptical, a little sharper since the hours have dulled his ability to be conscientious of... everything.]

Never tried? Then are you just here to shuffle around coffee or something?

[Though as soon as the words leave his mouth, he regrets them. Knows that they sound too much like the old him that reemerges frustratingly when under duress or, apparently, lacking rest and working particularly long hours. Snappish, sarcastic, impatient. Stephen closes his eyes, shaking his head as though to say "sorry, let me try that again", and waves the whole notion away.]

Sorry. Tired. Thought I'd be used to this by now, but there are only so many codexes a guy can look at before he goes cross-eyed.

[ordinar]

[In answer to the severe expression and sharp words, Wilhelm's shoulders stiffen, rising like a battlement. Days and nights of torment, sharpened by a scarcity of sleep, have frayed his mood. Normally, he might bite his tongue despite his annoyance, but now an acrid retort bubbles up, burns in his mouth. Fuck you. Get your own coffee then. Fortunately, before he can form the first syllable, Stephen clears away his snappish response with an apology, and the fire in Wilhelm's chest is doused at once. There isn't enough in him to burn. His posture sags with a long sigh.]

It's fine. [He cards his hands through his hair, scrub at his eyes, his frustration culminating in a groan.] This seriously sucks.

[His eyes fall on the book spread open on the table, its pages overwritten with a jumbled series of symbols and sigils that glow in the dimness of the room. He shuffles closer.]

Here, I'll take a look... It couldn't hurt. [A scoff.] What am I going to do, make it harder to solve?

[sorser]

[Stephen's own agitation, when it flares, is less like a fire and more like an ember that sometimes burns, but mostly agitates. There's not much to keep it going, and not much that will transform it into a proper conflagration, unless some poor fool actually sets all his books on fire, or knocks over his alchemy set onto the ground like a clumsy cat.

Thankfully, no one has been unwise enough (or lacking so much spatial awareness) to manage that yet.

When the young man shuffles closer, Stephen considers him for a moment; a newcomer, probably, or else he's just missed his face an inordinate amount of times around the castle. One is a lot more likely than the other.]

If you could manage that, I'd actually be impressed.

[Stephen picks the book up with scarred hands, his casual treatment of the massive tome either proof of his exhaustion, or familiarity with handling such wildly arcane objects.]

Go nuts.

[funbreaker]

[ Burning the candle at both ends, that's what they call it. This is not a ritual that is by any means foreign to the Scions, and so when the nightmares start like an illness spread among the Summoned and when the mages of Thorne ask for help in getting to the bottom of this, sleep is deprioritized.

Thancred has some experience in staying up for long hours, and so while he can't offer much when it comes to crafting the spell, he can provide company to others who are up into the dead of night, hard at work. Again, this is nothing he hasn't done before, having stayed up with both Y'shtola and Urianger when they had some immense stack of tomes to sort through. Both of them could easily be considered even worse at sleeping well than he is, which says plenty.

Speaking of Y'shtola, she would be the one to ask such a question. Thancred glances over at Stephen's desk as he falls into his seat, then steps over to set down a fresh cup of black tea for him. ]

I think you know the answer to that. I believe Y'shtola is fast asleep, or I would ask her. [ Which is a rarity, but even she has her limits. Thancred lets out a sigh, glancing down at the massive text that Stephen's pinpointed as important for their current predicament. With a small shrug, he reaches out to slide it closer. ] ... I suppose I could give it a try. [ He's familiar with many different magical concepts, and at one point in his life could use basic spells. It's possible he'll be able to offer a fresh perspective to some tired eyes. ]

[sorser]

[Stephen cannot help but groan. He is tired, and his eyes feel strained; even when he was a newcomer at Kamar-Taj, ravenous for new knowledge, for learning, he was afforded more rest than now. The nightmares have not done any of them any favors in the focus, well-rested department. The shadowed entity that lurks in these halls has deprived them of the ability to conduct this research with bright eyes and unending vigor.

Slumping back in his chair, his cranes his neck backward and closes his eyes.]

Be my guest. [The clink of the cup of tea placed on his desk makes him reopen one eye, though, peering at it. Appreciated, but he makes no effort to reach for it just yet.] At this point, any pair of eyes plastered to these books is better than mine.

[Which feel as though they're about to fall out of his head.]

[funbreaker]

[ Thancred might hazard a guess that they even slept better on their trip through Thorne when they'd been taking shifts to ensure that they weren't ambushed while camped out on the road. It isn't just that the very idea of sleep right now is a threat, but also that the boogeymen haunting their nightmares are slowly but surely crossing over to the waking world.

Whether or not they could ever become a true danger is unclear, but some people have reported minor injuries. If the situation continues to escalate, there's no telling what might happen. Which is why they're here.

All they can do is rely on their second, third, or fourth winds to keep them going even as the exhaustion sets in. Stephen is flagging, understandably so with how hard he's been at work.

If nothing else, Thancred can grant him a break.

He remains standing but leans over the desk, cracking open the text to the pages Stephen seems to have bookmarked. He finds paragraphs of magical theory followed by various runes and sigils, almost as if there's some manner of puzzle to be solved. Thancred gets a few sentences in before he feels like his eyes might glaze over, and he can understand why Stephen needed the help. ]

Shall we go sentence by sentence, breaking it down? That might be the most surefire way to make sense of it.

[sorser]

[His lips quirk. Stephen knows that look, the expression of a man who's only just realized what he's in for.]

Might as well. We're in it for the long haul, now.

[But all the better that he has someone to share these academic burdens with, because even if it does not make the work any less grueling, there is some comfort in friendly company that dulls the mundanity. Stephen motions at the empty seat across the desk, indicating for Thancred to sit.

They get to work. Time passes as they approach it as Thancred suggested -- line by line, page by page. Not much progress is made in the first hour, but slowly pieces start coming together. At some point, Stephen's willed a few more books to their desk with his magic, and they float around the two men in a lazy circle, opening their pages as he flips through them one by one.]

No... No. Where is it? I know I've seen another volume of this book somewhere.

[blackeyedprince]

[Kell is not a team player. He's never been one. Most of the time, because people couldn't keep up with him. Few - let's face it, two - that did, he never really liked. Here though, he has to admit he's not going to pull this whole thing alone. And Stephen is the most competent person in the room. In his not entirely unbiased opinion.]

Given my own magic uses a dead language mumbo-jumbo, I'll bite.

[He did his research, hunting down books that weren't destroyed in the purge. Trying to figure out what words did what. Yes, he has some experience.]

[sorser]

[He might be wrung dry of all energy, his eyes strained from staring at glyphs inscribed on dusty pages all day, but Stephen perks up a little when he notices Kell; his presence is a little promising, and so is his willingness to make sense of this codex.

Experience with working in dead languages? Always a good jumping-off point, as far as he's concerned.]

Here.

[A flick of a wrist, and the book levitates, pages fluttering as it floats over to Kell. An open invitation to flip through it.]

Maybe we're missing a cipher, I don't know. It all looks the same a hundred pages in.

[blackeyedprince]

[Kell picks the book from the air, flips through the first chapter - or what looks like a chapter at least. There's a structure there, but nothing else so easily recognizable.

This might be a bit more challenging than he initially thought.]

There must be a pattern in this. Unless, it's utter gibberish, which I hope it is not. I prefer to assume nobody hauled it here only because it looked old and important.

[It does look both old and important. And one more thing: completely inert.]

I have an impression that by opening it, we're not really opening it.

[He had an odd map once. This book has a similar feel.]

[sorser]

[It is an odd tome, Stephen had thought. He would hope, too, that someone isn't wasting their time by tossing it into the collection of "useful" books on account that it's hefty and old; he's running on the assumption that everyone volume in this collection has its function, but he's just not seeing it with this one. No matter how hard he stares at the pages--threatening them to reveal their secrets to him via consternation alone--no epiphany sparks in him. No eureka moment, only a headache that's begun to pulse at his eyes and a pain in the small of his back for having been hunched over for so long.

He leans back in his chair, propping an elbow onto the table. His brow arches as Kell assesses the book itself.]

What do you mean?

[An interesting idea.]

Do you think there's a lock we're not seeing?

[northerndragon]

[Jon is, he thinks, out of his element. He’s been at this for hours. A glance at the book — even a close glance — doesn’t reveal anything that seems meaningful to him.]

Where I come from, you handle a siege with walls, arrows, flame. Hot pitch and swords. Not words.

[You know nothing, he reminds himself. This isn’t that kind of fight, no matter how you’d like to put Longclaw through that creature. He half-shrugs, and adds,]

But where I come from, creatures don’t attack your dreams. We have that much, and even then — well, sometimes there is need of a book. This one’s not in a language I recognize, the common tongue or High Valyrian, but that means little.

[sorser]

[The situation's gotten just dire enough that they need all hands on deck, it seems. Probably hoping to squeeze out any aid they can even amongst the Summoned who are used to taking a sword to a threat as opposed to poring over dusty old tomes. He can only imagine the frustration they feel, if Stephen's own patience feels frayed at the edges.]

And where I come from, we deal with books like these all the time. [He says, snapping one closed with some finality. He sets it on the desk and pushes it away with a sigh.] Doesn't seem to be helping me any, so don't feel too bad about it.

[He arches a brow at Jon, trying to place the face. Must be new, he thinks.]

So, I'm guessing no magic in your world?

wilhelm | ota

[ordinar]

As it turns out, banishing evil and saving the day is a lot more boring than he anticipated. When Wilhelm volunteered — less with the righteousness of someone who strives to do the right thing, and more with the desperation of someone whose sanity hangs by a thread — he worried that he wouldn't be able to contribute anything. But within an hour, he realizes that half the work comprises the mundane and menial. Like scouring bookshelves for volumes on a certain subject, sorting scrolls, delivering notes, fetching little vials of ingredients. Running for coffee, tea, snacks when teammates edge into crabbiness or sag into exhaustion.

Really, it's just a group project, the stakes of which are much higher than any homework assignment. And while he wouldn't describe it as thrilling or even fun, it's better than doing nothing. Better than waiting for night to fall like a guillotine.

As he hands a requested item to a teammate — a stack of notes from another room, a particular tome or vial, a mug of fresh coffee — he can't help but ask:

"So, do you think we're close to figuring this thing out?"

[a_better_man]

"Absolutely no idea."

Mat's honestly feeling a bit useless at this point. Magic is not his area of expertise, he knows less than even an apprentice mage here at the castle. And what he knows...doesn't exactly help with Thornean magic.

"But my eyes are about to begin bleeding. Between exhaustion and reading the same damned paragraph three times in a row..." He sighs and rubs his face and sits back.

"I hope better minds than mine are having better luck."

[ordinar]

A sideways glance at the page spread open on the table reveals to Wilhelm just about the densest paragraph he's ever seen. Half the words he skims over are unfamiliar. He shakes his head in sympathy.

"Your poor eyes." He scratches at the back of his head. "They say you're supposed to take breaks when you're studying. It helps you, like, absorb the information better or something. And this is sort of like studying, so..."

As a hint, he nudges closer the plate of cheese and crackers he'd nabbed from the dining hall. All-nighter fuel.

[a_better_man]

"I think a break is most certainly called for." It's not as though he's doing any good at the moment, and his poor brain is overworking itself.

"I am not an intellectual man. Blood and ashes, I'm lucky I can read at all, plenty of fellows like me never learn. This is like trying to read something written backwards in a language I barely know."

Mat does, indeed, help himself to a bit of food. It certainly can't hurt any, and perhaps the fuel will aide his mind in working a bit better. Why couldn't this be something simple, like catching something? He's damned good at that.

"I can't believe I went from never studying a thing to all of a sudden it's almost all I do."

[ordinar]

Although he's already pegged Mat as coming from somewhere old-fashioned and technologically unfortunate, the comment about reading surprises him. Insulated by enormous amounts of privilege, there's a lot Wilhelm takes for granted. Sighing, he slumps into an empty chair on the adjacent side of the table.

"Yeah, I thought I'd get a break from books here since I don't have to go to school. But..." Rather than finish the sentence, he thrusts a vague gesture toward the nearest stack of books. He rubs at his eyes, hands dragging down his face. "This sucks worse than cramming for any test I've ever taken."

He cared about his grades the requisite amount, but no test ever had such dramatic stakes. He tries not to think about what will happen if they can't pull this off.

"I just want things to go back to normal. Or as normal as they get around here."

[londonbound]

Rhy takes the book with an exaggerated shrug, letting it fall with a thump and an accompanying puff of dust on the table. He wrinkles his nose at it, and the whole pile of old and equally dusty tomes he's collected, looking for some symbols Kell had drawn on a piece of parchment pinned under a bottle of wine nearby.

"Why ask me? I'm just here to look pretty -- for moral support, you see."

He quips, but he does seem to be working. Or trying to. Rhy stifles a sigh, leaning back in his chair to look up at the young man standing by the table. One of the more recent arrivals, to whom Rhy has introduced himself in passing during Kylo's usual 'gather the newcomers and teach them about the Horizon' get-together.

"Wilhelm, was it? Sit. If you haven't anything else to do. I could use a break."

[ordinar]

Having only a negligible idea of what's going on — and a very fragmented one at that, thanks to all his coming and going — Wilhelm assumes that everyone else in the room must have a better sense of the group's progress. He's just the kid in the back of the car asking Are we there yet? While he's frustrated to have no clearer answer, he's also strangely relieved to know that he isn't the only clueless one here.

At Rhy's invitation, he sags into an open chair. His eyes wander over the symbols sketched onto the parchment Rhy seems to have been consulting, but it's a cursory excursion. His brain is spinning from all this magic script and he's not even trying to decipher any of it.

"Sorry, but I don't think the moral support thing is working out too well," he says, puffing his cheeks with a sigh.

[londonbound]

Rhy's eyebrows shoot up, in an exaggeratedly put-upon expression.

"Whaat? That's rude! I suppose I'll just have to try harder."

He picks up the bottle, pouring some into a glass and sliding it across the tabletop at his new companion.

"This should help."

No, he has not considered that not everyone is a lush who uses alcohol as a crutch. That's normal, right.

[ordinar]

The cool thing about living in an archaic fantasy realm is that nobody even pauses to wonder how old you are before thrusting alcohol your way. Wilhelm isn't a habitual drinker — it's something to do at parties, because everyone else is doing it and it magically dismantles the minefield of socializing. All the same, he needs no encouragement to scoop up the glass of wine when it's offered.

"Thanks."

He raises his glass to Rhy in a half-hearted toast, as if exhaustion has made his limbs more receptive to gravity, and tips back a gulp. None of that sommelier, swirl-and-sniff-the-bouquet stuff.

"So, this is awesome." Sarcasm shadows this declaration.