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

[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.

[londonbound]

Rhy takes a drink straight from the bottle. Comes back up with a grunt and a shrug.

"It's all right. I've had better."

He is aware Wilhelm didn't mean the wine, but what else is there to say? They've agreed to help. At least, he has. If the other young man finds it so tedious, no one's forcing him to stay.

"I imagine you didn't wander in here by accident and get stuck fetching books and parchment for someone. You volunteered like the rest of us, didn't you?"

Rhy's tone is mild, curious more than accusatory. Wilhelm had looked a little lost, but maybe he just needs direction. Rhy understands that all too well. Without Kell and Stephen, he would feel even more useless than he already does.

[ordinar]

Whether Rhy intended it as a reprimand or not, Wilhelm looks chastised with his gaze dropping to his wine. He spills a sigh. Rubs at his eyebrow, drags his hand down his face.

"I know, I know, I wanted to help," he explains with the singular defensiveness of youth. "The way things have been, I can hardly relax anyway. So I might as well be here..."

With not nearly enough diversions to occupy his hours, he ends up spending most of the day startling at shadows that, in the peripherals of his vision, morph into the menacing figure of his nightmares. Dreading nightfall. Slowly going insane. Productive tedium is a fair alternative.

"That doesn't mean I can't complain."

[londonbound]

"Certainly, you can. And you may as well do it alongside making yourself useful."

Saints, he's starting to sound like Kell. Soon, he's going to start developing a little wrinkle between his brows like him too.

Rhy runs a hand over his own face, muffling a sigh and taking a few moments to stare up at the ceiling. Then, back at Wilhelm.

He takes the parchment with the drawn-on symbols and turns it to face his companion, sliding it across the table for Wilhelm to get a better look.

"I'm looking through this stack of books for symbols that match up with any of these. Stay and lend a hand. We can be bored together, but at least it counts as doing something that's not staring out the window waiting for nightfall again."

[ordinar]

Wilhelm concedes with a nod, shoving a hand through his hair. Now that he's sat down, standing up again seems an onerous prospect, so he reaches across Rhy to pull the topmost book from the stack. Cracking it open, he tries not to be daunted by all the diagrams and sigils and indecipherable jargon his eyes glide over. All he has to do is look for symbols that match the set on the parchment. It shouldn't be that hard.

As if to prepare himself for the work, he downs another swig of wine. He's never paired drinking with something so unequivocally not fun before, and maybe now isn't the best time to experiment, but...well, his record for making sound decisions isn't the best either.

Despite the state of things, a grin tugs at his lips as he jabs a glance Rhy's way.

"What happened to just being here to look pretty?"

[londonbound]

Life lesson number one: Drinking makes non-fun things tolerable. You're on the right track, kid.

Rhy grins back, flashing his dimples and adding his most disarming wink for good measure.

"I'm doing both. A man must know how to look charming even doing the most mundane and tedious of tasks. What if a handsome young stranger happened to walk by, complain about the state of things, and wish to share a drink?"

[ordinar]

It hits him like a brick to the face that, oh, Rhy is flirting with him. And he takes it with about as much grace as he would a brick to the face. His grin stutters, an awkward laugh popping out as he shakes his head.

Of course he thinks of Simon — he thinks about him all the damn time. Tangled up in Wilhelm's sheets, laughing up at him, calling him an idiot because that was their version of flirting. He thinks of how nobody here has seen that damn video or has any idea who he is. The heady feeling of freedom, the chance to shape himself as he wants away from the confines of the royal family.

All of this crashes through his head in the span of about five seconds. His eyes dip to the book spread open before him, but without actually discerning anything on the page, as he realizes he has to say something.

"I guess if nothing else, that's working out all right," he finally lands on. Nailed it.

Immediately, he busies himself with more wine. But before his attention returns to the task at hand, he spares a surreptitious glance at Rhy.

[londonbound]

"Is it? Well, that's a relief!"

If Rhy noticed Wilhelm being awkward, he makes no sign of it. Just smiles innocently, then reaches over to pour some more wine into the young man's glass.

"Here. To fortify you as you work."

When he's done, he follows his own advice and takes a drink from whatever is left in the bottle.

Then, when he comes up for air, he is a little more serious. Reassuring.

"It won't last, you know. There are learned magicians working on this. They'll figure it out."

[ordinar]

Oh, is he grateful that Rhy at least politely pretends that his response passed muster. In the shadow of this casual exchange lingers a quiet ache of guilt — even though it was over between them, even though he might not ever see Simon again at all — but the salve for that surely lies somewhere at the bottom of this glass.

As Rhy tops him off again, replenishing the inch or so he'd already drained, Wilhelm worries he might be burning through it too fast. But then...Rhy is drinking straight from the bottle, so he's probably doing all right.

"I hope so. I can't keep doing this. Not this," he clarifies, tapping the page he's only begun to study. "But, you know...the nightmares."

[londonbound]

Rhy's gaze softens, sympathetic. He nods.

"Everyone is doing their best. We'll help where we can. It'll be good to keep your mind busy, when you can."

He leans forward slightly, meeting Wilhelm's eyes.

"Did one of the dreams hurt you?"

[ordinar]

Reluctance marks his expression and body language. Regardless of the circumstances, there's a sort of shame inherent to injuries. Injuries are weakness, vulnerability. But then Wilhelm nods and, pulling at the collar of his shirt, tilts his head away from Rhy to showcase the stretch of his neck. There, his skin is bruised in the shape of hands.

"I woke up with this the other day. That's how the dream ends every time," he explains, trying to cram as much matter-of-factness into his voice as he can, to leave as little room as possible for his actual feelings about it. But the shadowed marks speak for themselves.

[londonbound]

Rhy's brows furrow, concern and sympathy turning down the corners of his lips.

"I'm sorry. That sounds awful."

Setting down the bottle completely now, Rhy raises a hand -- slowly, giving Wilhelm a chance to pull away if he doesn't want to be touched -- and brushes two fingertips very gently across one side of the bruise.

"I can help, if you'll let me. With the injury. Not the dream, I'm afraid."

[ordinar]

He allows Rhy's touch, finding a measure of comfort in the gentle brush of warmth against his bruised skin. Though he hardly knows Rhy, he's lonely enough — and freaked out enough by circumstances that day by day swell to become more suffocating — to latch onto any sign of friendliness.

"You can?" Despite living in a castle crammed with mages and people with all kinds of power at their fingertips, Wilhelm still manages to be somewhat surprised by the offer. He nods slowly, sucking his lips in. "Sure. That would be...I'd appreciate it."

[londonbound]

"I can," Rhy murmurs, reassuring.

Withdrawing his hand, Rhy gets to his feet and comes around the other side of the table, standing behind Wilhelm.

"I'm going to touch your neck. Just hold still."

He can better reach this way, even if it might feel awkward. Sliding his hands beneath the boy's collar, Rhy presses his palms over the bruises, gently, and focuses his magic. His lips move silently, as if in prayer, not any sort of incantation but simply asking the magic to help, to allow him to heal these bruises that are clearly causing Wilhelm distress.

Wilhelm will feel a warmth radiating from Rhy's hands and into his skin, soothing, spreading. When Rhy pulls back, the bruises are gone.

[ordinar]

Having never been on the receiving end of a magic spell before, Wilhelm startles as Rhy's touch suddenly turns warmer. But he soon relaxes as the warmth sinks into him, pulsing with its own sedate heartbeat, dissolving the dull ache. Closing his eyes, he focuses on that strange sensation and ignores how...intimate this is. When Rhys withdraws his hands, Wilhelm replaces them with his own to feel for any soreness. None answers his testing fingers.

"That's so cool!" His eyes practically twinkle with amazement as he twists to look over his shoulder at Rhy. The thing about being from a thoroughly mundane world is that it makes one easy to impress.

"Did you learn how to do that here?"

[londonbound]

Seeing Wilhelm immediately light up like that, clearly feeling better, Rhy smiles in echoing relief and excitement that he's managed to help ease the boy's burden a little, despite how heavy these past few nights have been.

Luckily, he knows by now what cool in this context is supposed to mean. His smile grows.

"I did. It's just very basic healing spells for now, but I've managed to convince one of the elders at the castle infirmary to teach me. Where I'm from, the ability to heal people with magic is very rare. I never expected to discover any sort of talent for it, so realizing I could do even this much has been something I'm still learning to understand. I hope your neck feels better."

[ordinar]

"Thank you."

It's one less thing to carry around, at least. And if they can get this ritual right, then the shadowy entity that wears a crown and his brother's lifeless face won't find him in his dreams tonight or ever again. Speaking of which...back to the grindstone with them.

"Now I can hurt it by staring at all these books instead," he jokes wryly, hunching in an exaggerated manner over the tome spread open on the table.