☆ 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

[freeing]

[ The woman listens to what's inside her heart. If it goes against her advisers, it causes rifts – she was still a young girl, inexperienced in war but hardened by it. The light she offers only grows stronger when her excellence is realized with feats of dragons and hope – but now, she fears she has none of those.

It is as if she's trying to pull it from Asura – hope that was as infectious as any disease. Part of her wants to rest, to believe in his words and desperate to find some silver lining here. It is only a satisfied truth: what happens here today will be the first step on the path they need to walk.

She doesn't part her lips, which had turned more pale and nearly frigid since arriving – the spells of her cell kept her body so icy cold, so lethargic and immovable. Her eyes feel heavy, but she will not sleep. Her eyes feet wet, but she will not cry. There's a moment of lingering tension until their gaze meet and he can see not the brilliant green trembling like the blades of the Great Grass Sea, but the fire threatening to consume them all. ]

No. [ She says with a cold hiss. ] Only justice and they will know the difference between the two.

[mirshikar]

[ Sibilant and self-possessed, her expression of vehemence; her answer which calls for a clean separation of two ideals which have long since been wed to one another by the natural forces which govern the King's homeland and world. It is a human response (and so too wholly unsurprising to him), to want for the distinction between justice and wrath— one, perceived as righteous, the other, often associated with callous revenge but: ]

For my kind, my Summer brothers and sisters, there is no great chasm parting the two. [ —he does not dispute her, offering his own truth as simple counterweight. He wonders: will it enliven her further, cause her to rise if only to match the strength of her own belief? Asura has known mortals (and she is one, despite her dragon's blood and her fire) to move the world on behalf of their faith, and perhaps Daenerys is one such existence. ] Those of my Court wear many faces, all of them angry, their wrath used to swing the hammer.

[ Swing, to bring justice down upon loyalist pigs and slavering hobgoblins; to protect their Freehold and to ensure that no Gentry incursion would ever befall the Four Great Courts or descend upon humanity again. ]

Justice is fair, and it is balanced, but it is not cold. [ And she must know this, for the green of her eyes blazes like his own. ] It burns, like the hearts of my people, as my own heart does.

[ Molten as it is, casting light into the shadowed cell with the rise and fall of his chest, the incision straining open upon each inhale of breath (an outpour of firelight), and closing upon each release (the return of darkness). ]

[freeing]

[ She has been taught there is a difference. She's seen blind rage — how the Sons of the Harpy infiltrated her city out of disgust for her new order, but never did they find it full of justice. It was 'payback', it was 'revenge'. Here, even when she feels the heat of her anger boil her blood, she views it as justice. Maybe she tells herself that to make sense of the world, to make herself feel better than the evil she wishes to snuff out — it matters not.

His words ease her instead, speaks with a wisdom she finds comforting. It keeps her going, even if she is in pain and her feelings are suppressed in a quiver of her cold lips. ]

Help me, then. [ It was a simple plea, easy to mistake with how she clutches so desperately to him in her vulnerability. ] Help me bring justice to these halls and burn away the evil. Let it be ash under our feet.

[ She knows not of Asura — not really, not beyond idle knowledge and conversation, but she asks so much of him. Part of her feels pity for him. ]

We need only a flicker, a moment to spark this. Will you help me?

[mirshikar]

[ When she looks to him, entreating him for aid, he wonders what it is she sees. Is it the gruesome wound which their captors have inflicted upon him in their greed? The gauntness of his face? The crust of old blood which clings to him (his scales, his skin, his hair all heavy with gore and the filth of their cells) like a shroud? Or is it that she is able to see him as clearly as he sees her— the way her strength grants her clarity of mind, free of the fetters that would have liked to prevent them from converging together, the draconic aspect of Summer and the mortal who wished to cleanse the evil before her with fire. ]

You ask of me what is already in my nature. [ Once, he had told as much to her. Had spoken of the crimson banner of Summer and the war he thinks on now, a pervasive sense of longing for his brothers and sisters, his comrades in arms, making his words all the more arresting and profound: ] Just as it is my edict to make war in the name of freeing the world of its oppressors, I will help you, Daenerys.

[ And so she should not feel pity for him. What she asks is no burden, no more than the weight of her hand which yet remains in his own, his thumb stroking over the ridges of her knuckles in a there and gone caress before he asks: ]

My only question to you is how you would have me further this cause of ours.

[ What is it that she has dwelled on in her hours of isolation, in the deadened, private periods where she had no cellmate with which to commiserate, no ally to lean upon? How is it that she means to cause her spark? And should be bereft of a way, perhaps he will have the chance to repay her for his cruelty of allowing her to linger on in pain. Magic thrums beneath his skin where vitality no longer does, and if it is the right time which is swiftly approaching—

Let there be fire. ]

tw: mentions of slavery and rape

[freeing]

[ Her words repeat over and over: help. Once, she thought she could conquer the world to save it from itself with nothing but a birthright and the story of her standing from her husband's funeral pyre.

It was her people, her closest allies, who insisted: No one can survive in this world without help, no one. She holds true to that, even if no one believes in her. She believes in herself and that was enough most times – but this? Help, she'll plead until her voice grows hoarse. ]

Thank you. Thank you. [ He'll feel fingers curl barely against his, clutching harshly to his hand as if to steady herself – steady her train of thought. It has all been a hazy snowstorm since she arrived, where her mind is lost without seeing clearly most of the time. The ice magic has tormented her, the torture of having her scales ripped from her body leaving her labored – but here, she is clear.

She has spoken it into existence since she arrived: they will burn. It was no idle threat. It wasn't for the slave master in Astapor and it was not at the Khals who continued to pillage and rape. Her dreams come true... and when her eyes shut out of fatigue and sorrow, she dreamed of dancing flames off the iron bars of their cells. ]

Fire. I need to... cause a fire. In the other city, I was able to summon it from deep within my chest and breathe it – it only occurred once, but... I've never been able to summon it again. It may be the spark we need, a distraction to escape and get help...

[ Her eyes cast down, watching at the way his own marks and badge of 'honor' showcases itself. She does not see terror or gore, she sees hope. ]

[mirshikar]

[ His eyes follow the line of her gaze, and Daenerys is unflinching when she fully takes in the sight of his mottled skin and the strange, incandescent light which others in this pit (their captors and those who could not shake the fear instilled by them) have deemed a study in horror. But she is not them; she is instead galvanized by a notion which Asura can taste as clearly as the heat and tang of her anger, that emotion which settles on the tongue as the memory of sunlight through flowering, fruit-bearing trees: hope. Daenerys has not the means to set the fire (not now, not when she is so wounded by the cold), but she believes there is a way, and so— ]

Tell me what it is you felt, when fire first erupted from your chest. What was the sight before your eyes? What thoughts possessed you at that very moment in time?

[ —she will. Asura will lay the means at her feet, help her to become the catalyst she so aspires to be, because... it is impossible for him, to reform the mass missing from his chest; to piece together the caved-in chalcedony in a way which supports sinew, muscle, and flesh. But for Daenerys, the thrum and pulse of his Witch's magic will alleviate her burdens; it will see her renewed again. And though the shadows of their jailers and guards are never completely out of sight, Asura decides: this is the time to act, this is the time for Daenerys to rise (as he had promised her, his words no empty pledge borne of desperation or folly). ]

Tell me that story— [ Horrible as he imagines it to be, if it is of her time in the Onyx-walled City. ] —and I will breathe life into you.

[ As he has already started to, a wordless incantation spreading the skeins of his magic through the link of their hands, its slow suffusion throughout her frame flourishing like a song which only she could hear, one which emboldened the heart as it coursed adrenaline and strength through the body: this is the weight of the Wrathful King's regard, his grace. ]

For it is you who must remember how to kindle your dragonfire and burn so brightly that others will know to move and follow.

[ Because they are ready, and though they are as tired and as broken as the King's rent-apart chest, they hunger for the chance to take their freedom back. Asura has read the messages passed in response to his words; though he has not met for himself all their Mirrorbound comrades, he knows their voices. They are ready to fight. ]

[freeing]

[ You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?
Do you?
Do you?

Daenerys did not wish to believe she held the same hatred her brother did. The bitterness, the anger, the jealousy, the madness. Even now as a broken woman in the arms of a near-stranger and pleading so desperately – she is not her brother. His words hollow in her mind and she fears what will come next now, what she will need to do.

But, a Queen makes sacrifices – hers will be wore so tightly to her heart no one will know, only Asura. ]

The city where chains were wrapped on the wrist of children. Where freedom was stripped away and its citizens left with nothing. They dared challenge me and my intent – when their morals were that of coal. So I gave them fire.

[ Before she knew it had happened, before she knew she could control it – she masqueraded as a witch and blew her cover with anger. So much anger.

She grows silent, eyes shutting as she tries to regain her own strength. When he connects them far past any physical sense, he becomes part of her and she, part of him. It was a magic she hated, truly – a despise for how invading it felt at first. How unfair magic was. His words hit her and she tries to spark some of her to remember what she felt.

Her lip snarls up. First it was insult, then bitterness, then pure hatred. Ignorant and unfair in its own right – and then, fire. To burn those who opposed her. She gasps against him, a hand coming up to curl at the crook of his neck, to steady herself against him in her time of need.

If he was to tell her to fan the fire inside, he was certainly the spark she begged for. ]