☆ 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

[futhark]

[ That stubbornness is what keeps them going, what keeps them alive. Thrown in a nightmare like this is unlike anything he had experienced. Oh sure, there were people who wanted to kill "Cú Chulainn", make him suffer. Blinded by their petty spite they stopped on nothing to make their target miserable— Morrigan and Medb comes to mind.

Here it's different, it's coldhearted violence, driven not by passion (that he could understand) but impersonal cruelty. Hated not directed at an individual for perceived slights but towards the whole group of people.

Caster exhales loudly as he feels the tail circle him, he expects pain, attack, only few seconds later he recognizes it as comfort and he leans into it despite it. Still a Fire Witch, even with magic subdued, his body still runs warmer— he can give the body heat by trying to shuffle closer. But he brushes against his shoulder, and a hisses from the sudden pain flaring up. ]

I saw— messages. [ His voice a hushed whisper ] There will be time to be really stubborn soon— converse your strength.

[ As if there was any left... There will be time to resist once again. They have to try. It's as defiance towards the imprisonment as it is towards despair because— all his Bonded are here ]

[curruid_coinchenn]

[ Caster's warmth is the only comfort he's had in recent memory. There's no move to press any closer, to save the both of them the pain. His tail gently squeezes around him once more before relaxing. The idea of soft comfort in a place where there has been nothing but pain feels so alien.

Berserker turns to look at him as he speaks, his brow furrowed. ]

...My stubbornness has only gotten my body broken like this. I'll die if I resist much more...I'll take that over giving into them. [ He lowers his head, as though ashamed of his weakness. ] If you get out of here...Find Diarmuid for me. Neither him nor Flat are here and...Geralt... [ His voice breaks, much to his frustration. ] Geralt is gone. The day we were taken here, our Bond...snapped.

[ It's something he hadn't admitted to anyone else yet, something he barely admitted to himself. ]

...I just want to know they're still here. Let them know I'm still alive, that's all I ask of you.

[futhark]

[ What he wants is to protest, but he can see the state Berserker is in. And in the end what is real and tangible trumps over a dream that keeps them going. Sometimes you have to leave someone behind— that's just reality ]

Geralt...? [ Caster closes his eyes and lowers his head too. If they're close enough to bump foreheads, that's what might happen. He wants to say that perhaps Geralt went to Dorchacht, the combination of dampening and distance could make the Bond snap. But giving this kind of hope in a moment like this seems... pointless. Berserker knows better what he felt, and if this theory happens to be true, better be happy for a reunion than, disappointed with reality if the worst is true. ]

Understood —I'll pass this message to my Bonded, and whoever else I can trust it with. [ If his Bonded are here he's also realistic about this— he'd rather push them outside and be the one to stay behind. When the fight happens, if the fight happens, some might not make it. He's been always at peace with that possibility. ] Focus on surviving till then.

[curruid_coinchenn]

I will do whatever I can to survive...I have to.

[ They do bump foreheads when Caster's head lowers and Berserker presses into it. It doesn't feel the same as it does when he does it with his Bonded, but it's still some sort of nonviolent contact. It's familiar and he's clinging to the familiar as hard as he can.

He wants to believe what he felt has to do with the dampening of their Bonds; he knows better than to hold out meaningless hope. A part of him hopes to see Geralt in the city once this nightmare is over...if this nightmare is ever over. A hope he shouldn't hold on to. ]

Are your Bonded here? [ I'm sorry. ] ...Have you been near them? Is it the same when you're near them?

[ The dampening magic, he means. ]

[futhark]

[ They're tough bastards to kill, a small blessing. As long a will to live and survive still burns inside Berserker, they will have a tough time with him. But surviving doesn't stop one from being broken.

Still, as long as you live, you can pick up these pieces. Glue them together. ]

It's dampened, muted, but I can feel them in flashes.

[ If he was sitting like this with one of them, skin to skin, he'd feel them almost as if there was no dampening. As much as yearns for that kind of contact, right he's glad he and Berserker are not Bonded. At least he's not adding to the painful burden the other already has to carry. ]

I can feel what these bastards do to them— [ And they can feel that in return from him. ]

[curruid_coinchenn]

[ The broken pieces were already put back in place once, now shattered again in different ways. It would take more time than before to patch them together and it would never be quite the same as it was in the first place. So it goes.

His expression darkens at the mention of being able to feel flashes. Can Flat and Diarmuid feel that from him, too...? At least they know he's alive that way. Berserker sits in silence for awhile as he considers the information Caster gave him. ]

...That's unfortunate. My own... [ He stops again, jaw tightening. It's overwhelming to be in this situation and separated from the ones he cares about most. Better that he's here without them. He has to fight through strong emotions to speak clearly. ] I can only hope they don't feel what's been done to me.

[ It's a comforting lie. He knows they've felt everything he has and that is not a comforting truth. ]

[futhark]

They most likely don't— [ Caster knows his experiences are vastly different from those who don't have their Bonded here. ] they know you're alive though, and are aware you're in trouble. If not for that, people outside would just think we had all went back through mirrors.

[ It takes effort, organizing thoughts to speak in a measured way. But he clings to that facade, because what else he can do? ]

They will come for you.

[curruid_coinchenn]

[ He doesn't want them to come for him; he wants them to forget about him and leave him here. They are better off without him, without someone so awful in their life. His body hurts, but it's not the physical pain that torments him so badly.

Berserker says nothing and begins to tremble. It's too much to bear. Every nerve is raw and everything he feels seems to be amplified by the hopelessness inside. He turns his head away from Caster as tears he doesn't understand (he never understands them) start to run down his cheeks. Exhaustion and desperation take their toll. ]

...As you say.

[ His voice is weak and it's as shaky as he is right now. The strength the dragon once had is all but gone and that's what hurts him the most. Without strength, he is nothing. He is nothing now but a broken shell, full of hurt and anger. ]