Event Log: October, The Price of Revolution p2

[faileas]

Event Log: October, The Price of Revolution p2

Imperfect Solutions With all the crystallized energy harvested by the volunteer dreamwalkers in the nightmarescape gathered and counted and found to be just enough, Aefenglom's Coven turns to putting it to use. It takes three full days, until the 1st of Octeuril, to purify and prepare the black glass-like orbs, even with most of Aefenglom's skilled Witches on the case. Learning the purifying process is open to Mirrorbound Witches as well, since even their own needed to be taught - the magic that allowed this energy to be brought into the waking realm is a type of spell not seen in many decades, and will likely not be seen for many more. Purified, the crystals turn clear and iridescent, exuding power, and each one is imbued with instruction by Miss Nessie and her inner circle. From there, they're taken to Dorchacht along with volunteers - Monster and Witch alike - who wish to help with the waking process. It's simple from there: each small crystal is laid over the heart of a sleeping citizen, and within the span of half an hour, they wake, confused and disoriented. They need filling in on what happened, and the comfort of friendly faces, because they will be angry about what happened, or scared, and may accidentally lash out before they come around fully. With the Three woken as well, and a little problem like Morgana lingering like a storm cloud, the talks begin on how to proceed, but it becomes apparent that they cannot agree on what to do. Aefenglom's Coven under Miss Nessie want to strip her of her magic and imprison her indefinitely in order to draw information from her, while Dorchacht's Coven, furious about how they were attacked, simply want her head. Finally it comes down to who will have the strength and numbers to reach her and take her down. Whichever Coven arrives first, with Mirrorbound assistance, will be the ones to decide. Neither are terribly happy with the disagreement, and Mirrorbound may see relations between ally Covens a bit tense in the coming weeks. Both parties will set out on the 11th, after regaining their strength, and set a course through Dorchacht's largely-unexplored Wilde.

I. The Trees Have Eyes Far past the borders of the Wilde that Dorchacht's explorers have mapped and begun to reclaim, the landscape twists overgrown and sprawling. As you delve into the birch forest the sky overhead grows dark and gray, with little sunlight filtering through the thick mist even at midday, letting you know you're on the right path. Monsters with night vision have a distinct advantage here, and others may find themselves stumbling over uneven, treacherous ground in the dark - roots that weren't there a blink of the eyes ago, sharp stones buried under the carpet of dead leaves, sharp branches that almost seem to reach out for them, aiming to cut and scrape and spread their Cwyld infection. Taking a lantern or learning a light spell is highly recommended to help you avoid the natural dangers. Of course, some of the dangers are unnatural as well. In the dark, tendrils of fog curling over the thick carpet of dead leaves and brush, the birch trees stretch toward the sky like pale, jagged fingers all around you, all their trunks littered with strangely shaped knots in the bark. You might feel as though the eye-like knots on the trees are following you, blinking and shifting, tracking your movements; many of them are, and it isn't hard to figure out who is keeping eyes on you as you get closer to her stronghold. If you want to maintain some element of surprise, the trees must be blinded. These eyes can be damaged physically or blanketed with spells. They weep blood down the white bark when cut into, which may be unnerving, but it's better to continue on without surveillance if you can. She knows you're coming, regardless, but she may not know what you're capable of.

II. A Maze of Thorns The Forest of Eyes gives way to rocky ground and thorny bushes rising into the darkened sky. Up here, it's not quite mountainous, but it's more difficult to traverse than any explored ground closer to Aefenglom. It becomes a significant hike to keep going and once again, Monsters are likely to have the advantage, especially those with adaptations that fit the climate. Off in the distance, far uphill, a grand, dark manor comes into view, looming oppressive over the land much like its owner. It's out of place in this swath of Wilde, unmistakable - it could not have truly been raised without notice, and so is most likely an elaborate illusion. This can be confirmed by your Fae brethren, or Witches who specialize in illusion magic: they see twisted trees with screaming maws set into their trunks and bleeding eyes, huge stones engraved with runes of power and covered in blackened, Cwyld-infested lichen, and the thick webs of massive spiders draping the branches like tatters of silk. Dorchacht's Witches confirm the particular stench of Morgana's magic, an elegant black mist that may smell a little like sweet rot to those who are sensitive to such things. You know she's there. But you have to get there first. A true, labyrinthine maze of thorny brambles stretches out between the illusory manor and you, filled with magical obstacles meant to slow progress and confound. Puzzles, minor curses and enchantments, and enchanted barriers requiring the blood of particular types of Monsters combined with a Witch's magic litter the way, ensuring you will need to work together - and work against the blanket curse that covers these grounds. a. To Those Unbonded, We Salute You As you traverse the maze, hopefully dispelling obstacles and leaving markers to help your fellows behind you find their way, it becomes clear that not all is well with some of your traveling party. A sense of heaviness in the limbs and a fog over the mind sets in when you enter the maze, and grows stronger and harder to ignore the deeper you go, the closer you get to Morgana's domain. It's a feeling that can be brushed off by holding fast to your Bonded - not necessarily physically, although contact helps, but emotionally, mentally, feeling out that connection between you and drawing strength from it. The stronger your Bonds, the easier a time you will have fighting off the curse laid over the land. Without a Bond, the sluggish feeling will persist, and it cannot be shaken off by even the strongest of wills. Maybe you can keep going, but your progress will be slow, and you'll find yourself weakened, your magic fizzling or your rational mind slipping away in fits and starts. Each step forward will be a torment until it grows physically painful, your lungs too heavy to expand and contract. Dorchacht's Coven believe Bonds are important, however, and most carry temporary Bonding potions with them in their emergency supplies. You'd best hope someone is willing to Bond with you, even for a little while, because it's the only way forward. b. False Moons As you progress, the dark clouds in the sky part, revealing a new trial to pass. Whereas before in Dorchacht, Morgana's thick fog suppressed the glow of the Sisters in the sky, now she has recreated them in shades of red, hanging low in the darkened sky - false moons, huge and glowing, their effects stronger than the natural lunar cycle ever could be. The tug on the mind and body feels just as unnatural as it is, profoundly different from the Sisters themselves. Monsters will feel the sharp yank toward ferality crawling in their every thought, heightening their more animalistic instincts and traits. Some may even slip into their full moon forms unbidden. Witches will feel their magic increasing, but to dangerous levels, until it's difficult to control and easy to go haywire. Losing yourself is inevitable if you slip even a little. Emotions go off the rails. Your fear, your hatred, your anger or your sense of righteous justice - they become gripping, impossible to ignore under the soft red light of Morgana's false moons. It's easy to see it in the Witches and Monsters from Dorchacht and Aefenglom both, who often start to bicker with each other and turn on one another. Can you keep the peace, or do you join in, turning on your companions in your red haze? Or maybe your better nature wins out - but even that can be used against you. Your love, your protectiveness, your loyalty, those too are enhanced to extremes with the intent to debilitate. The fake moons are easier to stave off with a Bond to turn to, someone to support and stabilize, to help you see through the curse that blankets the maze, but everyone will feel it stronger and stronger as they grow closer to their goal.

III. Black Magic Woman The maze of thorns emerges to hilly ground set with twisted trees and shards of stone jutting from the dead grass, many of them long ago engraved with runes and spellwork, now splashed with rusty, dried blood. The Cwyld is not present in this clearing, where the illusory manor sits atop the highest hill, but Morgana Drummond is probably more dangerous right now. She exudes power, and it's clear that a fight is imminent. The followers she has left are not present, nor are any of her mind-controlled thralls from the attack on Dorchacht - she stands at the top of the hill alone, the wind whipping at her skirts. Her voice rings out loud even though she doesn't seem to yell or project at all. "Mirrorbound, always poking your noses into the business of those who live here. Always so certain that you are right and just. What gives you strangers to this continent the right to decide what the way of our world should be?" Her piece is said. She's not much of a talker, but her eyes tell tales of contempt and disgust for the mixed Covens, the Mirrorbound working together, Witches and Monsters standing as equals. That contempt practically flows off her like water, tendrils of black that seep into the ground until it rumbles beneath your feet. a. The Clay Men Those erratic shards of rock jutting out of the ground start to shake before your eyes, reforming, rolling together with mud and stones and thick, heavy magic into vaguely humanoid creatures several feet tall, their "eyes" glowing as Drummond gives them life. Her clay men are sturdy creatures entirely bent to her will, the dead land given animation and strength and killing intent. They have multiple weak points, places the materials don't hold together as strongly, that can be used to dismantle them. They don't seem to reform after they've been defeated, but there are so many of them that they just keep coming. And worse, their stony, lumbering limbs that hit and kick are not the only weapons in their arsenal. Each clay man has an element, denoted by the glow of their "eyes": fire, ice, earth, water, lightning, some can even pull on two or more of these elements at once to make them difficult to take down. Somehow, these clay men have a way of using your own natural elemental weaknesses, whatever they may be, against you. A two-pronged approach is probably best: one person to counter the elemental attacks while the other attacks the weak points. The clay men will defend Morgana to the end, spreading out to push you farther from her, but you and yours have plenty of tricks up your sleeves, right? b. Sowing Division It should come as no surprise that mere clay men are not the only trick Morgana has to defend herself with. Her empire was built on mind control magic, and it comes as naturally to her as breathing. The blood-splashed rocks that litter the clearing like jagged teeth pulse whenever you get close to them, and tendrils of her control reach out for your mind. Her whispers are insidious, her commands clear: kill your fellows, your friends, your Bonded. It can be fought off, but not easily, and not without help. Your friends will have to bring you back to your senses, remind you of what's real. In the midst of the battle, with Mirrorbound and natives working together, a path is cleared for The Dragon, representative of Dorchacht's Coven. They get to Morgana before anyone else can, and she closes them off within a dark mist barrier to keep others from interfering. It enrages Morgana like nothing else, that her runes carved into the Dragon's body have healed, that her magic has no sway on their mind any longer. These two have a long and personal history, and the conflict between them ends here in blood. Morgana's throat sprays the dead ground as The Dragon's claws draw across it. They take her head off her shoulders, retribution for untold years of slavery and abuse at her hands, and in that moment, Morgana Drummond's magic dies with her. The illusions fade, her remaining clay men crumble, and the sweet-rot tang of her magic dies down, leaving only the silence and scents of a dead patch of Wilde. After a long moment, a riotous cheer goes up from the Dorchacht Coven members, while Aefenglom's look at each other with unease. Over the next several hours, the Three keep custody of Morgana's remains, burning them on a pyre. Interestingly, whatever they add to the flames makes them burn black - burning away her very magic, they explain, to lessen the chance of her remaining followers using any part of her remains for wicked work. Her ashes are bundled up into a box engraved with seals and will be taken back with the Three to be monitored for a week to ensure nothing happens, and then they will be disposed of. It's obvious from all the precautions taken that she will not return, but Aefenglom's Coven remains solemn and concerned; everything she knew is lost to them all.

Welcome to October's event, The Price of Revolution Part 2! Morgana's final fate was determined by a 31 to 17 vote to end her permanently. While this does mean she will not be returning (no twist endings here) and relations between Mirrorbound and Dorchacht's Coven remain strong, it also means any knowledge she may have had is totally lost. As always, if you have any questions, please direct them here!

Comments

[whomthebelltolls]

[It's not fire elemental, so Maria takes the opportunity to fall back into her more familiar element. As the ice wedges into the creature's knees, startling it, only the hiss of fire warns it of a second assailant, and it barely has the chance to turn around before Maria is diving from above, as she teleports above it, and then allows gravity to aid the descent with all of her fiery vengeance.

Ice helps keeps joints jammed up. Fire is just outright destructive, and purifying, and satisfying in a way that appeals right back to her inner Hunter instincts.

She's as brutal as before; points of the sword down, slicing into the creature's abdomen, piercing through the thick clay, igniting it within and without.

She can't wait to find something that is weak to fire, to watch it burn from the inside out like she can do with Cwyldtid creatures.]

[yesdoubt]

[Momo gives an appreciative sort of whistle at the sheer destructive force with which she comes at it using the fire - he hasn't reached into fire yet because he wants to be sure of his water and ice abilities first, but it does have that certain visual impressiveness to it.

In an almost morbidly amusing way, the ignition from the inside provides the final straw on the weakened magic holding the creature's legs on. After an initial wobble, it begins to topple forwards off its leg stumps, crashing to the ground with a faint crackling sound. Whether it's dead or not, it's certainly not going anywhere fast at this point - though Momo approaches it warily, another spike of ice at the ready that's aimed at an arm joint in case they move at all. His relative lack of experience with enemies of this nature means he's being a bit overcautious about making sure they're really dead, even if Maria looks to have roasted it good.]

You'd think clay would hold up better at high temperatures. [Very dry, deadpan joke, because something something kilns.]

[whomthebelltolls]

They're only held together by magic.

[That's her analysis as the thing crumbles, devoid of water, beneath her, hissing and sputtering from where the ice has melted and absorbed into the clay.]

... You've picked up well on combat. Fortunate, for now, but... I wonder how long it will remain fortunate for you.

[Maria may be drowning in her bloodlust right now, but it certainly has to compete with another emotion of hers she is frequently overwhelmed by, and that is her guilt.

She doesn't wish it on anyone else.

But just like that, she looks back over, curling her lip a bit as the battle rages. They've cleared out a nice little opening in their immediate area, at least. A reprieve for the fighters here. It won't last forever.]

[yesdoubt]

[Maria's somewhat late on that concern since Momo already had to mark his first killing of a person (or people, as the case ended up being) during the initial sleep spell stage, but all it really gets is a slight clenching of Momo's fists.]

I don't really care if it's fortunate for me or not. I never fought for myself, and that hasn't changed just because I have to do it more often now.

[Back in his world, he'd told himself he could justify anything to protect Yuki, and later to protect the others who became important to him. That hasn't changed - he'll do whatever he has to, and fight however he needs to if it means people are safe. If he can justify it to himself, then the guilt is lessened to just the knowledge that he had to end a life.

It's not something he really has the time or want to linger on right now, though, so he follows Maria's lead and looks out in a different direction for any golems that aren't currently occupied by other fighters.]

[whomthebelltolls]

Fortunate for them, then.

[Normally, Maria would make more of an observation, but they have neither the time nor, in her case, the willpower to keep going on anything that isn't killing something. She's fought and killed "for" other people before. It's why there's a dead village of innocents who continue to scream in the back of her mind to this day, that have driven her over the edge of total self-destruction.

And here she is, losing herself to that same bloodlust, working for others in a different way, but still very, very much so not even really for her own sake. Well, only insofar as it is that Morgana's return is an annoying inconvenience to Maria. She just really wishes it wasn't so easy, and that it didn't feel so good. Hunters become the very Beasts they hunt eventually, indeed.]

There. You said lightning element, yes? There's one. Let us go.

[And she's off like a bloodhound on the trail of prey.]

[yesdoubt]

[Momo definitely isn't angling for a big conversation right at the moment, because he just wants this battle over as quickly as possible. So he tails Maria similarly like a dog, starting to scrawl another ice spell so he can have something on hold to cast as soon as they reach the next golem.

Guilt or not, exhaustion and struggling against the feral urges Drummond's magic is bearing down on them or not, he doesn't plan to let up until the battle is over. He can worry about deep thoughts then.]