☆ Event Log: Snatched, Part One

[faileas]

Event Log: January, Snatched - Part One

I. The Fires (14th) Though it began this month with petty vandalism, before long, things escalate. On the evening of the 14th, when many are settling down for the night, fires blaze to life simultaneously all over the city, though they seem to cluster in places that Mirrorbound and refugees frequent. Homes, businesses, market stalls, the Barracks, the Residential Districts, they could pop up anywhere, but the worst of them seem to hit different locations within the Haven. The refugees stand to lose a lot in the fires, everything they've built up since arriving here at the end of September, and Mirrorbound stand to suffer damage to the homes or businesses they've built in Aefenglom. No doubt everyone is quick to catch on, but with so many locations burning at once, help is thin on the ground. As soon as they're alerted, the Coven sends out a call to all Witches, Merrow, water-based Dragons, anyone who can manipulate water or ice to help put out the fires across town before they can spread. With the city plan so tight and buildings so close together, it's a real worry. They'll accept all hands, even those with no particular water-based talents - anybody can carry buckets, after all. Bucket brigades made up of mostly Monsters form from the River Temese out to pass water to where it's needed most. Others with fire magic or resistances are asked to search the buildings still on fire for anyone still trapped inside. On the streets, more set up stations to treat burns and smoke inhalation, and to check people over for worse injuries. It takes a couple of hours to put out the last of the flames, but thanks to quick action, no lives are confirmed lost. The City Guard is present at the sites of the fires in the hours afterward, questioning witnesses and determining the sources with both magical and Monster-ability-based methods, but as the chaos calms down, it quickly becomes clear that 1. this is a case of purposeful arson, and 2. not all witnesses are present. Maybe it's your friend, or family member, or just an acquaintance you know you saw go into their house at the end of the day, but they're conspicuously absent from the crowds gathered on the streets. Those who are Bonded to a missing person feel it first, though - a horrible sensation like a pillow over the face or a tightening in the chest, smothering their Bond to barely anything, except the very rare flicker of something, a tiny spark lost to the darkness as soon as it's felt. The sudden absence of them is like a case of phantom limb, something that should be there suddenly isn't, but yet it isn't quite an annullment or breaking of the Bond. It's still there, just muted and tamped down. It feels a little different for everyone, maybe painful or maybe just uncomfortable, or maybe, in the cases of new or less-close Bonds, it simply feels as if it never existed. Regardless, those Bonded can't be found through Bonds. It's like those loved ones have vanished, without a trace. The City Guard and Coven representatives alike will seek to make a comprehensive list of all who have gone missing, but Mirrorbound cooperation will be needed for that; they would know better than anyone, because the missing ones are all Mirrorbound or refugees.

II. The Lost Souls (14th - 20th) CW: Torture, captivity, restraints. You were spirited away in the middle of the night. Maybe you were out, or maybe you were safe in your own home, but either way, someone managed to get the drop on you. Upon waking, everything is fuzzy, until clarity returns suddenly and violently. It's possible to remember a struggle, an enchanted darkness that might have enveloped you, maybe even a glimpse of the face of the human or Witch who grabbed you, but now you're stuck in a small, stone cell, the only entrance covered in shiny new bars thick enough to hold back a rampaging Dragon. The hall beyond is also stone and dimly lit by sparse magitech lights and the soft, runic glow of spells drawn on the walls and floors. There are more cells like yours, filled with more Monsters and Witches like you. What's worse, maybe you're alone, or maybe another poor soul is trapped with you - the space isn't exactly large enough for two, but the comfort might be nice. Witches will find their magic restrained, tamped down with a spell similar to the Coven's punishment for lawbreaking. Monsters' restraints are more traditional - muzzles, chains, manacles, and particular weaknesses that differ from Monster type to Monster type, such as silver or iron, water, or the lack of water. Even if, by some small mercy, a person finds themselves with their hands free, all of the captives' Watches have been taken, along with most other belongings on them. The uncertainty of your new location doesn't last for long. It's only a matter of time before people pass through the cellblock in pairs or trios, talking to each other and ignoring the captives behind bars, checking up on the spells that line the room. Those with keen memories will realize - these are not the same people who took them in the first place. All are human, and they all share a familial resemblance - black hair, violet eyes, pointed noses, and unpleasant sneers. Over time, with observation (and what else are you going to do, while you wait for the worst?), maybe frequenters of the Coven will pick out a familiar face, a haughty, unpopular Witch named Constance Rathmore who refuses to associate with Mirrorbound in classes, or those familiar with the law might pick out a mid-ranked member of the City Guard named Godfrey Rathmore, who perhaps looks the other way when refugees are harassed. As the hours tick by, it becomes obvious that there are maybe 22 of the Rathmore family, the only ones with access to this corridor. Other voices, maybe familiar from the kidnapping, can be heard outside the main doors at times, but they never enter, and seem none the wiser as to what is actually happening. a. The Torments And what is happening? Something sinister. It's usually a different set of family members, a pair of cousins, the daughter or the son, occasionally even the matriarch and her son and daughter-in-law (who may be recognized as long-time members of Parliament). Their methods and motivations may be a bit different, but they share one thing - innate cruelty, and a hatred for those they see as a plague on Aefenglom, those harbingers of unwanted change. Sometimes they inflict pain on captives right there through the bars of the cells, with nasty spells or physical instruments, but more often, they choose a victim or two to remove from their cell, still in restraints, to take down the hall, through the heavy door at the opposite end from the entrance. The wide room at the end is a place of horrors: instruments of torture lining tables, heavy restraints, and glass jars to receive any bits or blood they might separate from the original owners, to sell on the black market. The runes on the walls and floor in this room are different as well - this is advanced, forbidden magic, practiced by the daughter Constance on brand new test subjects. When the family members have grown bored or tired themselves out, they return their current playthings to a cell - not always the same cell with the same cellmate, not always with the same restraints, but every time they ensure that it will be difficult to escape or fight back. b. The Whispers While the Rathmores do not often speak directly to captives, they speak to each other quite a bit, as do the others who occasionally pass outside the heavy door at the entrance and simply seem to serve as watchmen outside the corridor. It's easy to get snippets of conversation between the horrors. What else are you going to do, besides wait, and listen, and plot your escape? "Shame about Uncle Rodolphus. Scarred by the mist, his Black Market business raided." "None of it would have happened if they hadn't provoked Dorchacht. It was Drummond's Witch in our city who unleashed that awful gas, as retribution for what they did over there..." "...-Destabilizing a whole city like that, and there are only a hundred of them give or take. Imagine what they'll do to Aefenglom if we don't stop it." "They'll all want to leave after this, surely. We'll go for another batch in a couple of weeks, once Godfrey convinces the Guard to stop looking." "Good. Maybe Dorchacht will take them. Them and their brutal revolutionaries..." "...-Father thinks we can control them if he manages to get in touch with his contact in Dorchacht. They had that spell, you know? Like the collars, but better. Maybe then we can sell them off, make some money back to cover our losses..." "...-All this pushing for equality. The whole economy will collapse. Everyone has their place in a functioning society, right, sister?"... "...-heard from Mr. Rathmore himself they're doing magic in there. A spell to send the Mirrorbound home, and the refugees along with them." "Then why did we have to grab them like that? You'd think they'd want to leave." "The Coven wants them here, obviously. It's a power-play, there's no way they'd allow Mr. Rathmore to do this..." "...-I don't know about this, the Rathmores always seemed a little extreme-..." As a reminder: while this prompt contains a general content warning for torture, please make sure to leave decently specific content warnings in your headers for anything that may be uncomfortable for other players to stumble across. The level of torture experienced by each character is up to the individual players - please respect each other's limits!

III. The Ones Left Behind (14th - 20th) Meanwhile, out in the city, the atmosphere is a new kind of tense. The papers pick up the story pretty quickly, so before long, it seems that everyone knows about it. In the days since the fires, repairs seem to be on the backburner; the remaining refugees especially worry for their missing friends and loved ones, and the missing Mirrorbound. The graffiti stops entirely, as do nasty comments in the streets. The upper-class, when they come into contact with the remaining Mirrorbound, cannot meet their eyes, or even react with genuine sympathy, a rare few even saying in hushed murmurs that they hope they find their people. Vandalizing their property is one thing, it seems, but people simply vanishing, Bonds being smothered... that's another. Even if they don't worry for the Mirrorbound, they worry for their own safety in Aefenglom now. On the other hand, residents of the Western Residential District, primarily Monsters but including a fair few humans as well, stop by the Haven more often, bringing food and kind words, and asking after the disappearances with real concern. The City Guard is an increased presence on the streets, trying to track down witnesses who may have information, but without warrants, their hands are tied in a lot of cases. Some Mirrorbound are asked quietly by the Lead Investigator if they wouldn't mind looking into some of the sources of the fires, and trying to track down anyone who might have seen something - they can operate a little more loosely, not being bound by the same bureaucracy as the Guard. They're promised Guard and Coven cooperation and support in this. The demand for artists increases in the days after the abduction. Many of the refugees especially will seek out anyone who can draw to help them create fliers about the missing people to post around town, to raise awareness. Maybe they want to make posters of another refugee, or maybe they want posters made of particular Mirrorbound faces who helped them in the past. They're distressed, but they're pulling together as a community - and it's clear they consider all the Mirrorbound a part of it, judging from how they'll try to pull anyone in to their efforts to put the 'missing' posters up around the city. The Coven, too, is in a flurry of worry, second only to the refugees, who are missing some of their own as well. Many of the regular classes are disrupted and become impromptu Divining sessions, circles of Witches holding hands and chanting in rooms filled with incense smoke, making concentrated efforts to determine the location of their missing fellows. After all, many Mirrorbound are their classmates, and they want to see them returned safely. Anyone passing through the Coven may get pulled into one of these sessions - Witches to lend their magic to the circle, Monsters who know any of the missing to act as foci. Unfortunately, nothing concrete turns up in the fleeting visions they do get, and the backlash is immense, resulting in splitting migraines. It's magical interference for sure. Luckily, Miss Aerianna, the middle-aged Arachne caretaker to the Dreamers (who, she'll say, are currently unreachable - they're trying to suss out the missing Mirrorbound as well), is well-versed with Divination headaches, and is around distributing her supposed cure-all, which smells like swamp-water and tastes twice as bad. At least it works on the headaches. While the part of the city who wanted to see the Mirrorbound gone have quieted down some, the part of the city that welcomes them has grown louder, providing what support they can to try to find those lost souls who have vanished. The investigation briefs will be posted under location-specific headers down below! Feel free to thread underneath them with others investigating the same area, or collaborate with other teams to share information. We decided to go ahead and allow for everyone who signed up to investigate whichever area they're interested in rather than splitting characters into mod-decided teams, but we encourage working together!

Welcome to Part One of January's event, Snatched! The sign-ups thread is here - it's not too late to get involved. Only the kidnapped characters who will escape on the evening of the 20th is closed out to new sign-ups. Headers for the investigations are here. Part Two of this event will be posted on the 21st and will include the escape, rescue and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

And a note for all! If your character does anything significant during Part 1 or Part 2, we want to hear about it on the city tracker! Make sure your submissions are in by Feb. 3rd, because a special aftermath post will go up on the 4th.

Comments

1. torture

[hippocarnival]

[His look mostly meets messy green and red hair, as Yuya doesn't lift his head from his knees at first. He hears someone being dropped in, but he's so tired. He hasn't made this easy for them, kicking and fighting and possibly catching a chain that let one of the other captives get out. Even without his magic, he has to try and do something. But every action has a consequence.

He finally looks up, blinking slowly before his eyes light with recognition. He's gaunt, it's easiest to see in his face--thinner, and maybe that's also why he doesn't move so much right now.]

Louis?

[rightfoot]

Yuya.

[ The acknowledgement almost sounds empty. He's tired. His body hurts. But he also doesn't want to let the other know that he's feeling - well, over it. He doesn't want the other to be dragged down by him. It was hard enough without trying to deal with how someone else feels. ]

You don't look good.

[ It's meant to be - well, empathetic to him, but it just sounds as empty as anything else. It's not like it's intended to be that way, but it's hard to continue trying to feel fully. ]

[hippocarnival]

I could say that, too. [He cracks only the briefest smile before shifting forward, catching himself on his hands as he gets to his knees. He's too thin and too weak, starved to keep him complacent from lashing out, but he holds in how much it hurts. There's still a strong enough fire in him that he doesn't want to give these people the satisfaction of wearing him down.

Someone has to come soon. They will. They have to.]

Are you bleeding?

[rightfoot]

[ He looks down at himself, as if he doesn't trust Yuya's judgment on his appearance then he glances up. If he's smaller, thinner? It's hard to tell. He's certainly not as strong as he was. But he has lose a decent amount of blood and hasn't really eaten much. Louis has always been rather small for a red deer of his age. He returns his eyes to question when he's asked. ]

I'm -- [ he looks down again ] I don't think so.

[ He shrugs. ]

Hopefully not. [ It's not that he'd notice anymore mats or dried blood in the fur. He feels utterly disgusting by now. At least let him bathe! ]

Just sore. [ A nice way to put it. ]

Are you -- okay? No, of course not okay.

[hippocarnival]

[Yuya squints, still trying to see, and not above using his vest to stem the blow if he catches any fresh blood. Boy, it is hard to see in a straight line right now though.]

Been better. [He cracks a weak smile.] But I'm alive.

[Yeah... he's still alive. He's still holding on, but god, how many days has it been?]

[rightfoot]

No kidding.

[ Louis has been fumbling around on a bad prosthetic since they took the one he had on him. His regular one would enable to move at his normal speeds. They clearly wanted to slow him down. It's awkward, but at least he can't feel it anyway. ]

Alive is good, I guess. I mean, right now it's hard to tell if being alive is the best option.

[ That, he means. He probably shouldn't just have that half-smile when he says it, too. ]

[hippocarnival]

[Yeah, that's probably how it's meant to feel. So painful that death would be a release. Whatever their plan is, at it's base it's just about making them suffer. And then profit from it, and that's the worst part.

Yuya raises his shoulders, lifting his head with weary defiance.] There's no way I'm going to die here.

[They can make it hurt all they want, he refuses to give up to it.]

[rightfoot]

And you shouldn't want to die in here. I just want to make it through. [ Like he always does. But, his previous experiences will make it easier for him to behave here. He knows what not to do to not upset someone. The second you become too difficult to handle - you're done. ]

Just keep your head down for now, and you won't die in here. We don't even know where we are beyond these walls.

[hippocarnival]

[Yuya went and learned that the hard way. This isn't even his first time being kidnapped.

He looks up, squinting at the bars of the cell.] We can't be out of the city, right...?

[If the building is big enough to be housing everyone, and there's no apparent concerns for Cwyld. So aren't they still in Aefenglom?]

[rightfoot]

[ Louis shrugs. He doesn't know. He really doesn't know if it even matters, though. Like - they could be in the city, they could be in another city since that teleporter was now working. Maybe they're beyond the walls. ]

I don't know about you, but since I remember nothing about getting here, I wouldn't be able to tell you. I mean, it'd be easiest for them if we still were.

But that's a pretty nasty thing to hide under the Coven's nose.

[ Ah, yes, can you sense the distrust? ]

[hippocarnival]

Yeah, but the worst kind of people always think they can get away with it. [And mass kidnapping definitely slots someone into the 'worst' category.

He shifts back, scooting closer to the wall so he can lean against it. Trying to stay sitting up is tiring.]

[rightfoot]

I mean, it's not like they think they can for no reason. We've proven to them that they can get away with it again and again.

[ And, if they get away with it this time, it's just going to tell Louis that they care so little for the Mirrorbound that his suspicions about the Coven were correct. ]

Makes me curious if they've done something like this before, too.

[hippocarnival]

[Yuya coughs.] This a lot more than mean pranks and graffiti. Even in Dorchacht... they couldn't hide it in the actual city. You'd see it if you looked.

[And it was negligent for the coven to be looking the other way on their sister city until then, but the Mirrorbound probably wouldn't be as careless in Aefenglom. Right?[

[rightfoot]

I mean, of course it is. But it also means that if you tell them the smaller crime is okay, people escalate. Especially if they always wanted to and were just testing the waters. Since they weren't stopped there, why would they not go for it?

[ Basically, he thinks that the Coven will only care if this happens to make them look bad. ]

[hippocarnival]

[Yuya tilts his head, looking up at the ceiling. It's just dark.] They don't want to believe they're that evil. That... anything like Dorchacht could happen here, I guess. Most people... most people's cruelty doesn't go this far. It's just the few of us that do.

[Us. It slips out as his thoughts unravel carelessly to find an answer. But he's been down a road this violent before. He, too, didn't have real justification for what he did when he was slighted.]

[rightfoot]

[ Louis shrugs. Maybe it was just how he was to start with. Maybe he'd lost faith in people along the way - once he recognized that the selling of other people was happening. That was pretty much the only line that needed to be crossed for Louis to start distrusting people. He glanced up towards the door, then returned his attention to Yuya when he outs himself like that.

Louis has no room to judge. He'd pick the path of cruelty if he could get results from it. It wasn't necessarily preferred, but if he had to - he would. So, he passes no judgment, despite that, because he doesn't know Yuya's reasoning, and he isn't going to ask him to justify it. ]

Sometimes cruelty is, regretfully, the path. But it almost feels like there should be an end and a reasoning for this type of cruelty. Is it for fun? What are they hoping to get from it?

[hippocarnival]

Satisfaction. [He continues staring at the ceiling, until the blackness of it starts to get blurry.] Guess they'll make some money, too, if that's why they're taking parts. But it's really just self-serving.

[What about it is so satisfying to the Rathmores, he can't say specifically. Power, control, hate, vengeance... a combination. In general, though, cruelty this far down the line comes because some part of them just likes it. Likes the results.]

[rightfoot]

Money. [ Makes sense. It explains all of the blood, at least. Fortunately, his antlers had shed prior to getting taken so they were, for what it was worth, gone. ]

Makes sense. People will do a lot of gross things for money. [ Y e a h. Gross. But Louis had to assume it was more than that. It took substantial resources already to do what they were doing, allies, money, power. Abducting a large quantity of people wasn't free or easy. ]

But for fun sounds like it is a part of it, too. At least to me.

[hippocarnival]

[They will, but it doesn't come across like money is the main objective at all. More like a bonus, that they might as well profit off their suffering.

Yuya drops his head to look at Louis.] I guess... fun is a word for it. [A pause.] You want to make sense of it, huh?

[rightfoot]

Don't you?

[ It was the answer he had that came immediately. He wanted to know. Why wouldn't he want to know why they wanted to do this? Why not make sense of it. Even if for others and not himself. They deserved to know why they were dragged away like this. ]

[hippocarnival]

[Does he? Some of it he already understands, regretful as that is.

He pulls his legs up, resting his arms on his knees.] I don't think any answer is going to be very assuring. Could you accept if the reason was just that they're hateful and selfish?

[rightfoot]

Yes, I could.

[ He answered so quickly, because Louis wouldn't be shocked if someone were hateful and selfish, and that was it. In fact, if that were the only reason he could probably live with it. But, maybe there was more to it. Maybe it was more complicated than that. It just seemed...so dumb to just do it for that reason. ]

It may not be reassuring but at least it'd be an answer. I feel like that's better than nothing.

[hippocarnival]

[Yuya tilts his head.] I think we'll find out once they're busted. Have you heard the things they're saying to each other?

[rightfoot]

I haven't heard much. [ Louis considers that they've been careful not to share too much with them. ] Just whispers and care to not let us to know too much. It's been kind of frustrating trying to hear what's going on.

[hippocarnival]

They're not all good at keeping to themselves. [His expression twists wryly.] They're lying about having a way to send up home, apparently. I think they want to scare us out of here.

[Or kill them all, whatever results gets rid of the Mirrorbound.]