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Player Plot: The Salvation of Geardagas, Part 1
Event Log: January, The Salvation of Geardagas: Part 1
The Evergreen Circle
A rash of disappearances has finally caught the attention of the authorities, but only thanks to a strange twist: a handful of the missing individuals are starting to turn up again, and not as they should be. It began with a harpy. After a week of nothing she returned, fully transformed into a Shade and too far gone to save. The same happened with a trader the next day. And the next with a witch. All three were infected, albeit to varying degrees, and only one of them was able to be brought back from the brink. Naturally, this is a huge cause for concern. There's little sign that the Bright Wall is damaged and none of the victims were known to have left the city. Questioning the survivor, Owain, doesn't produce any leads either as he can't remember anything before his disappearance. It's only after he's had some time to recover that he notices something off. As the blackening of the Cwyld fades, a small tattoo on his palm that wasn't there before becomes visible. To the concern of the Coven, it's a symbol that's familiar to them as the emblem of a rising spiritual movement favoured by the wealthy called the Evergreen Circle, led by a witch called Cillian Alder. Their purpose, he claims, is to provide hope through interrogating the Cwyld from a scholarly and philosophical perspective. In spite of this, Alder has developed more of a cult-like following than anything. Mirrorbound of standing (business owners, members of parliament, public figures, etc) might have already received one of their pamphlets. Naturally, it's an incredibly sensitive subject. The Evergreen Circle has been entirely peaceful up until now, and with such influential and powerful figures among its numbers, the Coven is reluctant to make any outright accusations. Instead, the task of investigating them has been covertly passed to the Mirrorbound. As outsiders, they stand less of a chance of causing political unrest. However, they explicitly warn against taking any hostile actions for the time being: this is an information-gathering request, nothing more. They can provide basic information about the Evergreen Circle meetings but that's about it.
 Cillian Alder
The meeting convenes at 8 o’clock sharp and silence descends upon the room as a figure takes the stage. With his commanding presence and charismatic smile there's no doubt about who this is: Cillian Alder. A man in his late fifties with greying hair, he speaks with an accent crisp as cut glass and a strong voice, no doubt amplified by some kind of spell to reach around the room. He's hypnotising, those cool blue eyes of his impossible to look away from and piercing in their intensity. "How wonderful to see you all tonight, both familiar and unfamiliar faces alike! You are all welcome. I have only one request." He brings his hands together with a smile. "That you keep your hearts open. How else might our minds grow Evergreen?" Alder's speech is nothing if not passionate. He paces and proselytises, responding to the audience's interruptions and cheers with enormous enthusiasm. Throughout, his message is clear. "Who are we to immediately decry the Cwyld as a curse? Fear of the unknown, of what we have yet to control, can only hold us back! We must instead seek to understand it and be at peace with its presence! This is a test of our conviction! Our will to survive!" It goes on for the better part of an hour and, afterwards, he descends into the audience to receive their praise and questions with the gracious smile of a beloved king. He might even turn that magnanimous presence on you, affording you a few crucial moments of conversation (limited to 2 RNG characters). Will you stick around to find out more or try and slip backstage while everyone is distracted? For such a warm, welcoming atmosphere, there seems to be a lot of security around the doors leading back there so it might take some quick thinking to get through without conflict. Those who are caught will have to face the consequences, but the results might be… unfavorable.
It's easy enough to fight off the attackers but nigh impossible to actually catch or identify one: each is dressed in black and smells of the tell-tale decay of the Cwyld. But even assuming you do manage to apprehend one, they will refuse to talk in anything but vague, confusing comments about salvation and new beginnings.
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[ ooc: More information about the event can be found on the plotting post along with comments for questions, and RNG sign-ups for directly interacting with Alder! ]
no subject
So, right, he should probably go rescue that person, huh? Leslie is not going to let him get away with inaction. He knows that even before he gestures to the alley.]
Um, that person is being kidnapped, right?
[He tries to sound like he's getting a second opinion to avoid an awkward interaction if he's wrong, not that he was honestly considering leaving a victim.]
no subject
It takes her a second to react, because this was not a question she was expecting to be asked. Once it properly registers, she looks down the alley and that sure is a couple of shady figures clearly engaged in a kidnapping.]
-- They are! These have to be the people causing the disappearances!
[It might be comforting to see that Leslie's first instinct is to swivel her head around to look for a member of the city watch. Too bad there don't seem to be any that she can see (from not especially a high lookout).]
We have to stop them.
[It might be less comforting to see that Leslie's second instinct is to set down her basket to make it easier to reach for the least pure, sweet fairy tale child part of her appearance: a short sword at her belt. (The sword looks significantly less short next to Leslie herself, regardless of the scant centimeters of recent height gain.) She doesn't draw it and she isn't about to go charging in heedlessly, but the motion makes it clear that she hasn't even considered the possibility of not being a part of a rescue attempt.
The dress might be a problem. Note to self: breeches only until this kidnapping spree is over.]
no subject
He puts a hand on her shoulder to make sure she doesn't move in too quickly.]
If it is them, we know they are very dangerous. If I go in, I am counting on you to stay where you can see the road and make sure no one sneaks up behind me.
[An important job that totally isn't chosen to make sure Leslie stays as far from the danger as she can.
Hector takes a deep breath and gets ready to go down the alley. What else can you do when a sweet young lady is watching? At least if he dies here, he'll get better?]
no subject
Leslie looks up at Hector, her mouth starting to open around what would likely be some protest of him going in alone in a dangerous situation, but his suggestion seems to be the better one even so far as keeping him safe is concerned. There could be a third person, for all they know, and having one person closer to the exit makes calling for help much easier. And he must know better than she would about what he can reasonably handle.
So she closes her mouth again, looking worried for him. For a brief moment, she grips the back of his clothes with one hand.]
Please be careful.
[And then she lets go again as she steps away to stand by the edge of the alley with the wall at her back, to make it easier to keep an eye on both Hector and the road.
As she does so, she crouches down for a moment to gather some snow on the side of the alley into her mittened hands. She brings those hands up to nearby her mouth, where she blows into her hands as though trying to warm them. But her breath no longer shows up in the little cloud that normally shows up when a warm breath meets cold winter air.
Leslie may have accepted her position farther back, but she isn’t about to stay out of it. She is “warming up,” pun intended, her magic to bring some ice-based evocation backup to this party. The clump of snow in her hand is beginning to crystallize into ice under the attention of her magic, currently being conveyed by her breath because she gets caught up in her visual imagination when she works magic in a new way or stressful moment.
(If she’d gained the knowledge of winter recesses, she might also realize this snow clump is ripe to become an ice-centric snowball to beam them with.)
Time to see how Hector will handle this and if he’ll need backup.
no subject
The two shrouded kidnappers have their victim gagged and partially bound. They aren't paying too much attention as Hector approaches, the snow padding his hoof-steps.]
Um, hi. You should stop that.
[Not a very heroic declaration, but Hector's not a hero. He's kind of hoping that the presence of a witness will be enough to send them fleeing.
No such luck. Not yet outnumbered, they look to each other, then to Hector. One keeps a hold of the bound victim, and the other approaches Hector, pulling a loop of rope tied like a noose from their robes.
Hector... isn't armed. But he's a faun, with the bizarre set of instincts that goes with it. He lowers his head and charges horns-first. There's a grunt and a scramble that ends with the cultist sprawled on the ground but Hector's horns tangled in the rope.]
no subject
Still, she has no intent of letting this be two on one, even if she stays at thee mouth of the alley. Turning her hands over, she lets the icy snowball fall to the ground in front of her feet. It’s not bright enough to say that it is glowing, but there is a dim light that can be seen inside of it.
She uses that as a kind of base from which to extend paths of ice beneath the boot-packed snow until they reach where Hector and the cultist have fallen.
The wiser thing would probably be to first freeze the cultist against the ground to restrain them. The Leslier one is that a couple of small and thin pieces of ice stretch from the alley floor to cut the rope around his horns.
At least, so goes the attempt. One of them only makes it about halfway through the rope, but the second cuts the loop open. And she doesn’t want to hit Hector himself (he might already feel the wind of the passing movement), so she can’t entirely untangle the ropes by this method. But at least there’s no more noose!]
no subject
He shakes his head and manages to duck out of the remaining loops. The cultist is still down, groaning from the fall and the impact of horns to his gut.
But the second cultist has started dragging their prey away, further down the alleyway where they presumably have an escape route. Hector looks from one cloaked figure to the other, and charges at the retreating one, leaving his back open to attack once the downed cultist gets back on his feet. It's not the smartest move (which seems to be the theme of the evening), but it's what he does.
This headbutt ends up with all three of them -- Hector, cultist, and victim-- in a tangled pile in the snow. Hector bites his lip to keep his instinctive 'fuck!' from reaching Leslie's tender ears.]
no subject
Mr. Hec -- ! [She's taken a step towards the pileup before she clamps her hands over her mouth. It's occured to her that 1) she probably isn't supposed to announce her location for no good reason like that and 2) it probably wouldn't do to announce Hector's name to the people who are responsible for kidnappings.
Number 1 is certainly shot, though, as the previously downed cultist has paused in their attempt to take advantage of Hector's opening to look right back at her.
Hands still over her mouth, Leslie turns her head to make eye contact with the cultist. It doesn't seem like either one was expecting this situation. The cultist is still trying to work out why there is suddenly a child standing there and whether this is something they need to deal with before she can call for help.
Leslie swivels her head again to look at the trio pile, and then back to the cultist. Over to where the cultist's hand is still raised in preparation to strike at Hector, and back to their face.
Without a word, she removes her left hand from her mouth, raises it in the air, and pulls her arm back down as though she were pulling down a train whistle's pull-cord: an unnecessary motion for the magic, but Leslie finds it much easier when she can picture shaping magic.
A large clump of snow tumbles from a roof next to the alley to drop on the suddenly very startled cultist's head as Leslie produces an unstable mixture of conjuration and abjuration in the form of a barrier-like square of magic up on the rooftop. It's just sturdy enough to not fall apart when shoveling most of the snow off the roof onto this particular cultist's head.
The snow itself has fallen relatively recently, so it is not packed or wet enough to cause the now re-downed cultist any trouble in pushing their way out of it, but for the moment, the alley has gained one (1) snow sculpture in the approximate shape of one of the cultists.]
no subject
He grabs the citizen by her bound wrists and hauls her up with him. As he stands, he kicks out at the other cultist. His ankle twists painfully, but the second cultist grunts and lets go of the victim.]
Go now!
[He yells out, ordering both the victim and Leslie to move before the opportunity runs out.]
no subject
Even then, she hesitates at the exit of the alley, looking back to make sure Hector is also following.]
no subject
This whole debacle has put him in a foul mood, and he hisses at Leslie.]
Move, damn you.
[The fool girl has more heart than good sense! She should have fled the moment the captive stood, not waited behind. Is she trying to give Hector a heart attack, fretting over her safety??]