lunarwhite | NOVEMBER MID-MONTH EVENT.

Entry tags:

!event

NOVEMBER MID-MONTH EVENT.

THE JAWS OF FIRE.

WHO. Everyone.
WHERE. The Badlands
WHEN. November 16th.
WHAT. Tracking and exploration.
WARNINGS. None for now.

A SEARCH.

Urgent news has been delivered: a cart carrying valuable crystals has gone missing in the Badlands. If it is not an accident, it would be something targeted not only at the Light faction but also Spring, the destination of this particular load. As always, foreigners are called upon to assist in the investigation.

You are our only hope.

For more reasons than one.

ADMIN.

This is the log for the November mid-month event! A short write-up on what the characters will find can be read here. Participation in this log will earn your character bonuses during activity check.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them below.

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The man's fire passes harmlessly through Stone just like before, but the same couldn't be said for Rinzen. She hisses as Stone tackles her opponent away, forming a shower of thin needles which she casts at him. With Stone's help, the man is pinned to one wall...

... but not for long, as fire erupts from his hands once more and incinerates the needles to dust. A blast of air accompanies the flames, strong enough to send even Stone backward; a testament to the strength of his magic.

"I would love to remain and play with you, but I have matters to attend to. Change is becoming of this world, lest you forget. The Sun's era is at an end. Soon a new star will rise."

"We're not done yet!"

Rinzen takes a step forward, but it was too late. The man with three eyes vanishes in a flash of red light. She curses something under her breath, walking over to where he had been.

"Piece of shit. Probably wanted to put up a show, but he got outnumbered and ran."

Edited 2017-12-14 18:26 (UTC)

Louise puts her arrow away and unstrings her bow, now that the danger seems to have passed.

"Who is he?"

She takes a deep breath - her hat has long since been off her face, showing bright emerald eyes and a look folded into frustration.

"It's a long story. I know the magic he used - only the Mystics are able to warp space like that. He isn't one of us, we're dedicated to the preservation of the Moon. I don't know how he got a hold of that magic, or who he is - but he is our enemy now. His magic didn't affect you, either - that must have thrown him off."

Stone lets out another rumbling growl, and punches the wall just once in frustration, before shifting back down to groundling form so he can talk. "So you know what magic he uses, but not him? He couldn't have gotten it from your group and then defected?"

Rinzen wrings her hands together.

"Or he stole someone's body." Unpleasant as a thought, but it was a risk that all Mystics had to face. "Someone who hasn't been vetted yet, the bastard. It's my responsibility to catch him and bring him his punishment."

"That's a thing?" Phillip does not like the sound of that. "Is there a way to track him?"

"Not right now. I'll have to borrow Lucius' radar."

It's incredibly dumb.

"...He stole somebody's body? You mean your kind of magic can be looted directly from the dead body of a user?"

Since they seem to have no course of immediate action that can be taken, she'll turn to that.

And keep another thought to herself for now. If he could not harm us because we're not from this place, does that mean that someone like him created and maintains the Badlands? Or that the Badlands are what gives him power? She wants to discuss that with the others, later. Maybe just with stone. They really need to gather without anyone else around...

"In someone's body, to be more precise. A possession. But if he's taken a body, then the original person is as good as dead."

It's probably evident by now that Rinzen is royally pissed, and with that anger comes a slight loosening of her own concealment. Louise and Philip would be able to perceive that she too harbours a strong pressure of magic - not too different from that of the man who fled the scene.

"This is so stupid. It was supposed to be impossible for him to do this without us noticing."

"What measures of precaution did you take to prevent it happening without you noticing? And if you say "for him" does that mean that you had an inkling that he might do it?"

Louise looks at the spot where the potential body snatcher vanished from for a second before returning her eyes to Rinzen's face, watching her closely.

These are a lot of questions that she's not prepared to answer right now, but she has to.

"All who have our magic are monitored by the leader. Either he had bribed his way in to keep it silent, or that he took some method that we aren't aware of at the current time." The woman's face can't quite be perceived, but she's equal parts annoyed and angry.

Stone comes back from a circuit around the cave, and puts in, "I have his scent. I can try and track him that way. While I think you had better find out how he got your magic if he's not being monitored. If there's one, there can be others."

"That's on the list."

And it'll be all she says.

"This is a mess. Sorry... for all of it."

"There's no reason to be sorry if it is not your fault.

Is it?"

The leader, huh. "Who is the 'leader', in this case?"

"The leader? She's the most long-lived Mystic of them all. Has the most experience with our magic, as it were. It is not tied to any god."

Philip should find this familiar.

"Mystics, huh?" At least there's a name for them. "I take it you don't belong to a faction, and don't host foreigners, or we'd have heard about you before now?"

Edited 2017-12-22 05:51 (UTC)

Phillip does find this familiar, and he is keeping his mouth shut. He's still not 100% clear if he's supposed to tell people he has this magic, since they were so hard to find in the first place.

"Yeah. We don't pledge loyalty to any nation in particular. It's our role to be observers. My work with Lucius is an exception, though."

She says this carefully.

"...Can you tell us her name?" She almost expects the answer to be no, but why not ask. "And why the exception?"

"Just how many secret and powerful groups are there around here that we are going to have to worry about?" Stone adds with a growl. "I can only assume there are more."

Rinzen hesitates, and then:

"Aisne. This is the name she gives to us." She casts a glance outwards, at the cave's entrance. "I made my own decision to help Lucius. I owed him something from before."

To Stone:

"None left, I would imagine. We are... the fifth from the Old World, if you want to put it that way. The fifth and the last to survive the Fall."

Edited 2017-12-22 17:09 (UTC)

"And I assume you won't tell us what it is that you owed him?"

...Why can't she just come to a place where things are uncomplicated? It sounded so nice for a moment - find work, a nice preschool for Lottie, and a quiet life. She'd have missed her wife and other children, but at least this would have been nice and simple.

But no. Of course not.

She takes a deep breath.

"He saved my life."

To be honest, Stone doesn't particularly care about the particulars of how a boy made of light can save anyone, he cares about how it's practical going forward. "If this was an exception, does that mean your little group won't be involved in this further, or are you going to keep helping since it's one of your own gone rogue?"

"I'll keep helping."

People who are rogue will... probably be also on the Mystics' wanted list, yes.

(no subject)

ordinarycitizen - 2018-01-02 23:11 (UTC) - Expand

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