☆ 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

[silentsavant]

A wave of nauseous affliction crashes into Soren at this concentrated source of suffering. He really doesn't want to see it, but more than that he wishes they didn't have to involve anyone else in his own torment. Especially not Waver. It always hurts more to watch someone you know be hurt than a stranger. The same person who dragged him into his home and curled up beside him by the fire in an effort to keep him warm and fed, now grabbed and yanked at and bracing with all that he is against the searing prick of dirty silver lodged in the most sensitive spot they could find. What they've done to him is hideous and excessive. He feels violated. He hates them for it. He wants to snap their necks and make the room go quiet. He can barely keep the stampede of his violent thoughts reined in.

He growls deep in his throat, a low, inhuman rumble. This catches their attention.

"Do the other one!" one of the younger men cry gleefully. She's already on it, though, rounding the table to be on the other side.

"You'll start whining soon enough, believe me," she whispers next to Waver's skull, a rare instance of her speaking directly to her subjects. Her gloved hand runs along his taut ear, petting him like a real dog with faux kindness. There, she pinches. It keeps him guessing. Will she plunge the needle there next? When? "Extract some blood from the Dragon. There's something I would like to try in a bit. Constance's suggestion."

The captors look to the Dragon, a trace of fear in their eyes when the chains shackling Soren to the wall snap. They look to each other, then one departs for the supply cabinet while the other works hastily on repairing the link and reinforcing the metal with a fortification spell.

"Shit!" he curses as he tries to grab the chain that snakes across the ground with the movement of Soren's flailing arm. "He's getting—! Unruly. Can we knock him out for a second?"

"And ruin our progress? No, you buffoon. He's supposed to be unruly." In her burst of frustration, she smacks Waver across the face with the back of her hand, the one that pinches the needle. "Get a better handle on him, why don't you!"

Soren roars. His tail thrashes, shoving a faceful of spikes in his handler's face. He screams wildly. The chaos within Soren grows. They dole out another lightning spell, but all it does is inflame his quickly kindling rage.

[tryhard]

Waver barely feels the pinch of fingers tugging at his ear, though the skin is thin and delicate and it does hurt-- but compared to the burning sensation concentrated on one side of his chest, that ache barely scrapes his consciousness.

He struggles to focus on their words, trying to understand what's happening, but he can't see Soren from here. Certainly not when he's being held down like this, unable to even crane his head back. All he knows is the scent of blood and fear and anger in the air, and the fact their captors' interest can only mean bad things.

Waver nearly forgets himself and yelps when struck, startled out of his tense efforts to get a glimpse of the dragon. The sound is bitten off before it can quite escape, a choked-off grunt behind gritted teeth, lost beneath the other man's screams. Waver's cheek reddens from the blow. He blinks away the tears that threaten at the corners of his eyes.

wafer is cronchy

[silentsavant]

"My face...! My face!!"

Another shackle comes unbolted from the wall. The clatter of crumbling brick and collapsing metal clashes against the hard floor, footsteps stumbling away.

"I-I don't know...! I don't think it's worth it!"

"Why are the lot of you so incompetent!" the woman working on Waver screams, tossing a hand to the ceiling. "Get that blood!"

"Don't be heartless; we can't!"

They argue back and forth, both sides unwilling to budge. It's too dangerous, we can't do it; dragon's are dangerous, get over yourselves and focus. She turns to Waver and stabs him in the other nipple with her needle furiously, intent on seeing this through.

There isn't much going on in Soren's skull anymore. It's all a raving cyclone he's whipped into, unable to get a foothold even on who he is. If he can bite their heads off, summon a blast from his chest to vaporize them where they stand, clobber them some more with his tail, the room would go quiet and he could rest in the precious sanctuary of solitude. These feelings manifest as power he can weaponize. He snaps free of the wall and doesn't stop, eyes aglow with unnatural ferocity as he bullets straight for the woman at the operating table.

"Look out!!"

She swivels just in time to see him coming and ducks with a ringing shriek. The dragon misses and hooks into Waver, nails plunging into naked flesh and his teeth going right for the neck. Ironically, the collar protects the turnskin from the brunt of his assault. The room becomes a flurry of fearful activity.

But Soren... There's something deeply amiss with Soren. He doesn't stop hurting Waver at all. He doesn't redirect his violence to his "proper" target. He just keeps biting and clawing, snaking his spiny and powerful tail around his leg as though to hold him down while he rips into skin and summons yet more blood, so much blood, heady blood that makes him crazy to smell and taste.

"I-It's not working!"

"Shit! Focus; focus! You're freaking out too much!"

He breaks one of the chains binding Waver with the sheer force of a tug.

:U

[tryhard]

There's even less reason for it this time, nothing except the cruelty and a need to vent her frustration somewhere; the needle stabs him just to hurt, pulling free to the sound of a strangled, bitten-back cry from Waver, unable to stop himself fully in his shock.

The noise is almost as bad as the pain: a cacophony of voices like a storm rising around him, the din of their yells and curses mixed with Soren's snarls, the crash and creak of the restraints and chains and the walls around them. Blood and screams. It should have been familiar by now.

Waver doesn't see the dragon coming. He doesn't understand what's happening. Even as wickedly curved talons sink into his flesh, it takes his mind several too-long seconds to catch up, conscious thought struggling with the concept of what's actually happening. But then, Soren's teeth lock around his throat, and there's no denying it: he's going to die here. In his crazed fury, Soren doesn't recognize him. He won't stop.

The silver bends and dents beneath the dragon's fangs, squeezing tighter around Waver's wounded throat. It stifles his screams.

Blood pools beneath the table, dripping from Waver's neck where some of Soren's fangs scratch and dig into skin around the collar. It pours from the tear in his belly where Soren's claws pin him down, scraping against ribs. He can taste it between his teeth, the scent of it in his lungs. The pain is blinding.

But more powerful than pain is the instinctive drive to survive. It's not a conscious decision. The moment Waver feels one of the restraints tying down his arm snap free from the side of the table, he lashes out with all his strength. Even in this form, his claws remain sharp.

Like this, Soren is a large target. Perhaps anywhere will do, but some distant, still-aware part of Waver directs his blow on impulse to the most vulnerable part he can easily reach. A dragon is well-armored. So Waver aims for the eyes.

no scratch im angy

[silentsavant]

His slash swipes the mark, scraping red lines across his eyes and releasing his tooth-and-claw grapnel on the turnskin to retreat. His tail is the only part of him still snaked around his thigh like a boa but the force of his clutch loosened. The dragon gnashes his all-razor teeth and roars; Soren on a normal day only has sharp canines. He's changing. Distorting rapidly.

As one person flees the room, others follow in their burgeoning terror. They're abandoning them. Leaving them to kill each other. More precisely, they're leaving Soren to kill Waver to save their own skins. They doubt there's any chance for the runty turnskin to outmatch a dragon. Once they've all evacuated, the doors are deadbolted shut, other measures taken to secure the exit. The next thing they need to do is regroup with the intent to seize the dragon all over again, once they've calmed down and formulated a plan of attack.

In truth, Soren's exhausted from prior blood loss, from spent energy, from shock and overstimulation, from not being fed. He's running on empty at this point. Still, his wasted body urges him to continue maniacally in spite of it all. His blood surges like magma through his veins. Blindly, he tears into Waver with both of his claws to pin him down, to crush him with his stupid levels of strength.

[tryhard]

With only one arm free, abandoned by their captors and anyone who could release him, Waver knows he's woefully outmatched. He's trapped with someone much stronger and larger than him at the moment, and he can't even run or cover himself. He's going to die here.

Dimly, Waver thinks of Soren curled up small and cold, practically snuggling with him for warmth in a pile of blankets on the floor. The fireplace. The quiet conversation over tea. His polite demeanor, the spark of interest he glimpsed when they talked about magical artifacts and Waver's ideas for Inkchanted.

He considers, in silent, hopeless despair, how they might have someday been... friends. Or something like it. Maybe, if given the chance.

If Soren didn't lose himself completely now. If his claws weren't lodged in Waver's stomach, ready to tear out his insides and strew them through this damp and sterile cell.

His one free hand finds purchase under Soren's chin, fingers curling and his own claws digging into the soft flesh beneath as he shoves up and away, trying to throw Soren from him with his limited strength and even worse leverage.

"Soren!" Waver pleads-- rasping, choking, weak.

"Soren... please... stop. Stop. Get a hold of yourself! This isn't you! Stop it, please!"

[silentsavant]

"Soren" is fading faster by the moment. The turnskin's claws puncture soft flesh that is still human, but it's not enough; it only inflames his seething rage. He plunges his talons into Waver's bleeding chest and pushes him against the table, mounts and anchors him beneath him, his arms bulging with more pronounced musculature, orange markings of his biceps aglow. By this point, raucous growls grind his throat raw, too deep and harsh to belong to who he was, nothing resembling the pleasing smoothness that carried his intelligible speech. There's no coming back from this.

How far his mind has slipped is demonstrated in his next moments. The air hisses as his breath sac expands his chest upon inhaling. Particles of ethereal light swarm from midair to retreat into his drooling maw. But he's completely forgotten how the wicked witches had spelled him, and all of that tremendous, raw, and burning energy gathered within his chest starts to rip into him. One of his ribs protests in a snap. The dragon starts choking, unable to expel it, tears evacuating from glowing monochromatic eyes. The pain would blow his mind if he had one left. He starts to tremble, grasp on his opponent slackening and slipping as he burbles vainly, grimacing and tossing his head like he can throw the problem off him like that.