☆ 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

[mirshikar]

[ The rise to consciousness is a slow, protracted battle, one waged against a body which demands dormancy be maintained for the sake of healing itself. But the King fights, a voice like the soft kiss of an ocean breeze guiding him forward ("I'm right here. Can you hear me?"), closer toward the precipice between darkness and the waking realm.

Eyes shifting beneath the lids and lashes fanning heavy against his cheeks, Asura remembers: there is someone who needs him, someone who pleads ("Asura... please wake up...") not to be left all on her own, and with one last iteration of her name—Alex—upon his lips, he wakes in full. His green eyes are bleary, and a cold sweat beads upon his brow, but he is awake, and with his chin tilting up, the first thing he sees is not the pain in her face, how her fingernails dig into the flesh of her palms, but how she sits tall. Alex, her lap is warm beneath him, and though Asura can't ever remember feeling this chilled; this susceptible to the lower temperatures fostered by underground cells of stone, it is by Alex's grace that he is kept from the worst of it.

In time, he will adjust to the loss of heat within his chest, his internal temperature dampened for it, but in this moment when he has yet to come wholly back to himself, he shivers (and does not realize), the incision spanning the center of him straining with the rise and fall of his chest as he parts his lips, finds the words, speaks: ]

Heard your voice like it was a dream. [ The seconds pass and clarity returns to his eyes, their green starkly absent of the blaze which Alex had feared. Though Asura is never without wrath (and it is impossible for him to be so), here—with his head cradled atop Alex's legs, the bloodied and matted fall of his hair pooling over her knees—he is gentle, and on no account of the ache blossoming in his hollowed-out chest, because pain cannot subdue a dragon.

What can is this: the knowledge that Alex had fought for him, a perfect stranger, and had suffered for it herself. ]

Am I dreaming now, Alex? [ Slowly, unsteadily, his hand rises, his fingertips brushing along the rise of her cheek; his palm molding to the curve of her jaw. She is warm and she is real, and where Asura could not be sure if either of them would make it out of the room through the heavy door, here they are. Alive and together and able to challenge fate still. ] Are you...

[ Her nails, digging into her blistered hands. He becomes aware of this too swiftly, all at once. ] ...hurting yourself?

[sing_for_me]

[ She's not sure whether to be relieved or in disbelief. How could he possibly think this was a dream, after what she had put him through? A part of her is almost angry. Why does he continue to be so giving to someone who has done nothing but hurt him? He shouldn't be looking at her with such warm, kind, eyes, nor should he be speaking with such concern in his voice. It would be so much easier for her if he lashed out, or eyed her with disdain.

But with a touch of his hand, just like that, he tames her. She can barely resist leaning into his palm, which despite the lack of warmth, still melted through. How much more potent such a gentle action was in subduing her, compared to the back of a hand striking her face.

At his question, she quickly lowers her hands to her sides. But she does lessen the pressure to her palms. ]

Are you--Are you okay?

[ A stupid question. ]

Does it..does it still hurt?

[ Wouldn't it? Obviously. ]

Is there--Is there anything I can do?

[ Anything would do. Anything to try and remove the bitter taste of torturing someone else. ]

[mirshikar]

Talk to me. [ Less like the rolling resonance of Summer thunder and by far more akin to the dry rustle of Autumn leaves caught in the wind, Asura's voice is breathy and thin—even he finds it difficult to believe that it belongs to him. And still, he answers Alex's litany of questions which fall upon the ears like pleas, and he could swear that while her eyes beg of him to rail against her for her perceived transgressions, the stilt and tremble of her words asks something entirely different: help me to forget all of it. ]

Tell me... where you got that hellion streak from. [ Where she lowers her hands, his own stands raised, offering to her what she has already given to him: a place to rest her heavy head, if only she would accept it. Until the moment when she no longer takes solace in his touch, the cradle of his palm will remain against her skin. ] Saw you fight them, the bastards which put us together in that room.

You... [ here, he gives pause, the corners of his mouth ticking up into a grin through a grimace of pain. ] were something else, you know that?

[ She'd been strong, tenacious, and undeserving of scalded hands and the title of torturer she would brand herself with. ]

I'll be fine. [ And only someone like Asura, dauntless and bold and brash Asura, could say something like that with confidence when he bore a wound which seemed impossible to recover from; one that could easily be the death of another man. ] Been down for the count before, but I've always pulled through. But...

I've never been in the care of of someone who's worried so fiercely after me, when she's hurt too. [ Hurt, by the impossible task which had been set before her; what she had done for the both of them. ] Will you show me them, your wounds?

[sing_for_me]

[ That he still saw her fight tooth and nail surprised her, but knowing he saw her fail also stung. What good was all that if she couldn't help them anyway? Still, there was comfort in the things he said, the way he tried to frame it like her efforts paid off somehow.

Her cheek pressed into his hand, both consolation and magic softly spreading to her body, making it difficult to pull away.

Reluctantly, she caves to his request, unsure if it was the kindness of his tone, or just her struggle with saying no. His voice, weak as it may be right now, was one that invoked a response. She raises one hand to gently touch the back of his against her face, a heavy sigh escaping her lips. ]

But I couldn't do anything..in the end...