thousand dreams, lotus boats upon the waters

[promittere]

NEW MOON ADAGIO

Between the constant requests from the North and the sense of tension that pervades the manor, Sage Tatara makes an executive decision: we're going North, baby.

Of all the things that have happened thus far, let this be the ultimate test of your magic. Even as we near summer, it's frigid. Protect yourselves and your allies from the cold. Protect yourselves while also fighting off monsters (or other territorial wizards, should you make the terrible mistake of wandering into another's territory), flying through the vast wilderness, or protecting the poor humans who need your help to survive. Time to blow off some of your steam. Just be sure to obey Tatara's one rule: don't kill each other.

One particular problem of note is in the Forest of Dreams. Without its guardian, many of these rogue monsters and dangerous predators, displaced from their normal habitats, have found their way into the forest. Many of them, however, are unable to survive against the fatal toxin, and there are plenty of animal corpses and mana stones that litter the forest. It might be best to clean these up before the forest guardian returns...

That said, the toxin is yet another thing you must protect yourself against in addition to the cold. While you can likely keep yourself from dying from the toxins, you may not be immune to its effects. This deadly toxin causes anyone who breathes it in to dream and hallucinate vividly, be it images of the past, imagined futures, thoughts of the present processed and warped...

Strangely enough, those nearby may end up sharing in your dreams... Did you want the darkest recesses of your thoughts, hopes, and fears unearthed for others to see?

Those who decide to venture far past the more populated (in relative terms) parts of the North may find themselves stumbling upon what looks to be an abandoned bandit hideout. It seems it's been abandoned for quite a while—nothing to loot here, sorry!—but there sure are a whole lot of monsters that have decided to make this hidden corner of the North their home.

While you're at it, you may find a nearby cave. Beautiful crystals dot the walls and the floors, and there are small pools of hot spring water free for relaxing. It seems to be relatively free of monsters, too. So maybe this wouldn't be a bad spot to relax, away from everything else?

However, there's one thing that makes this cave truly unique, and it isn't the vistas or the springs—it's the bats. These bats hear echoes of the past and replay them for visitors. Should you stay a while and listen, a bat may pay you a visit. And when it does, it may play for you the voices from the memories of visitors past, whose stories may hold a clue or two to your circumstances...

While the Forest of Dreams is a memory/dreamshare free for all, the aural memories replayed by the bats in the Cave of Time will come from one of the original wizards only. If you'd like an audio replay of a perhaps significant moment either in their personal life or a clue as to what happened to them (it will be randomized), then please reply to this comment!

JOB BOARD

Clean-up and repairs. While thanks to the hard work of your Eastern friends the worst was prevented, the City of Rain emerged from their short ordeal a little worse for wear.

Buildings need repair, blood needs to be cleaned off the streets, the injured need help. This is, perhaps, the only time you will be allowed to use magic openly in the city (you've been given permits and everything!), but you still are not allowed to talk outside of designated zones. Please, please don't get arrested...

As for the scrap that litters the streets? Unfortunately, you'll have to take it back to the scrapyard. But this time, there's a big, roaring bonfire out there. Just chuck all the scrap and debris in the fire. The city isn't taking any second chances—extreme situations call for extreme measures.

Reverence. Several Northern villages are currently outside the protection of a wizard, and have requested the sage's wizards' presence. They're terrified of the monsters and worried the barriers for their villages will fail sooner than later. They don't simply ask for help for free, however, and these smaller villages are steeped in their tradition—they'll pay you their respects, praying to you, offering you gifts, groveling at your feet, in hopes for a modicum of your time and protection. Do their offerings please you? Then assist them with what you deem appropriate for their worship to you: kill a few monsters for them, or a lot if you're pleased. Strengthen the barrier a lot, or not at all if you're displeased. It's up to you! You have the power here. What's it like to be a god for a day?

Ladies' night. The monthly lady officers' gathering is coming up in the City of Affluence—it's an exclusive meetup for the women involved in and related to Western military and bureaucratic affairs. Anyone is welcome, so long as they meet two requirements: they are outwardly presenting feminine, and they have an invitation to the gathering. Here's your chance to flex your transformation and glamour spells! Infiltrate the meetup with a disguise and a fake invitation, mingle, enjoy the drinks, the jazz, the entertainment, and find out what you can... What's the Western army up to? Be careful, though—don't get caught and kicked out!

The attendees seem to be excited about the new phantasmagoria technology and the upcoming display, and many whisper about the upcoming Venator meteor shower...

G'RAHA TASKS

Greetings, new friends! I am G'raha Tia, and while I hesitate to call myself a mentor or a replacement for the one you had, I am eternally grateful for the assistance I received and will do my best to help your cause in any way I can. To that end, I feel I may need to be caught up to speed on the events and get to know all of you.

We can have some tea and sandwiches and have a discussion! That's the best way to learn, sometimes.

TATARA ACTIVITIES

Even if we're not here for very long, I think we should leave our mark (not literally! Don't paint on the walls!). I got paint and big paper in the dining hall, but no brushes... Do you know what that means? Finger paint! Finger paint a portrait of yourself with your name and I'll hang it up in the library when they're all done!

Thanks to Cid and Khun, my camcorder works now. The thing is, what's the point of filming anything if we have no way to watch the film?! Could you guys work together to make some kind of projector? Or like...VHS player? We could have a movie night together!

OOC NOTES

🌙 Welcome to your fourth event! It's your dreamshare and memshare event! Ready to open up with your deepest and darkest secrets?
🌙 We're halfway through the game. How do you feel?
🌙 Back at the manor, Kurapika and Maya have set up a bulletin board! Leave comments, argue with your neighbors, have fun. Be nice. Don't set it on fire.
🌙 On the admin side of things, Lav has swapped out Wanderer for G'raha! Please say hello to your new mentor NPC.
🌙 Your OOC plotting post is here! Remember to keep all wider plotting to the post, and remember to check back frequently, since not everyone checks plurk or discord all the time.
🌙 The next country to go on their mission is North. Do you think a PVP-enabled mission will go well?

» NAVIGATION

Comments

[impacter]

[Your heart beats rapidly in your chest.

Bruno starts, and Solomon guides, with the memory jerking the motions like puppet strings. A space for protection. A space for the vessel. Written incantations that feel like a mockery under the bitter rolling of your stomach. Sanctuary, sanctuary, protection against that which devours man.

You need a catalyst. You don't have to even think twice. There's pain, sharp and vibrant against the palm, and though neither of them find an injury, it can still be felt, blood dripping and coating the fingers. Tracing, writing, with no finesse.

The shape of the pentagram, the curves of the serpent, the directions and their marks. Time, Time, you need more time. The start of the seal splatters under heavy breathes. You need more time. You wipe mud and ash and sweat from your face, so focused that you can hear nothing but the heart beating in your ears and the begging need of your soul.

Let me take it back.

It's as they finish the last draw of the circle, an attempt to close it, that Bruno will feel Solomon grip him tighter.]

Demand it. Demand what you want.

[As the lines draw close with a startling ice to the veins, as the depths open against the pull of your magic like a hungry beast, like falling into the bottomless pit of the sea. Hell stares into you, demanding what your soul is worth, what you desire, what you will die to eternity for.

He's out there. He can reverse this. He can turn it back.

Barbatos.]

[fallingsand]

[ This is another moment in the memory that Bruno fights against. He jerks his hand back — or tries to — when he feels the stab of pain in his palm. Worse is how he can identify that feeling of hot blood running down his fingers even before the bright red of it makes itself known in the shapes he draws. He struggles, wanting this to end, end. Hasn't he dealt with enough blood already? When will it be enough?!

It doesn't matter in the end. His desire to fight against what he's doing can never be as strong as that young Solomon's desire to change what has happened here — and the old Solomon, the one he knows, his grip too tight. He has to carry on. ]

...I don't... I don't want to... [ Bruno doesn't quite sob the words. If nothing, he will be able to look back on this and say he didn't cry. It's a minor improvement. Regardless, his mind wants to reject the idea of what they're doing. This is a demon, isn't it? They're summoning a demon. He doesn't even need the feelings the memory is trying to overwrite him with to feel horrified. ] Don't make... please don't...

[ Don't make him do this, don't! Not that pleading with Solomon will help. Neither of them can stop this and the words force themselves out of Bruno's mouth regardless. ]

B-Barbatos, I summon thee.

[ It's a weak demand but a demand nonetheless. ]

cw: demon stuff, death

[impacter]

[Bruno's voice falls weak. In his minds eye, the same words echo with an outstretched hand and desperate determination in the strength of it, throat aching. The call goes out, a demand for an answer without a pact to bind it, a blind but brilliant shot through the depths of hell.

Something grabs up immediately in return.

Into the space between the mortal and the non, an icy claw digs into the soul, a grip that tears in deep and yanks. Payment, payment, payment, the spiraling of hell demands its payment of humanity. Is this the vessel, this frail one with the brilliant soul? They grip, and grip, and grip. They pull at you. At your soul. Feed them. Serve them. One more into the fires, one more into the mouth.

Even with such a tremendous amount of magic, you can feel that a piece of this portal you have made is missing. And you, yourself, are making up the difference, as your body starts to deteriorate under the payment. It all happens within a moment, the taste of blood hot in your throat as your chest burns for air.

Then the connection settles, a brief and brilliant moment, before a rippling blast explodes outwards in a swirling of demonic smoke.

Solomon and Bruno will go tumbling. And the phantom, the young man, rattled and bleeding and broken, crumples backwards into a heap next to the haphazard circle.

In the middle of the seal stands a creature. It looks down, with dark and cold eyes, at the man crumpled. Its gaze narrows. It doesn't speak.

He splutters. His breath is so shallow, fists gripping tight as though the sensation is leaving them.

--P---power...

A choking wheeze, an attempt not to cough.

He's dying. You feel it, in the weakness, in the cold, in the way the surroundings seem to blot. But every drop of energy he has is spent in locking eyes with his prize, in a confidence that shouldn't belong to a dead man, that shouldn't echo in his battered voice.

Barbatos...

Obey me... that whomst hath summoned y-you...

Lend... me your power...

L...

Lend me your power...

There's the quietest of chuckles, smooth and sinister, even as Bruno is let free of the bitter connection. The demon slides to the crumpled man, the lightest of touches to his shoulder.

A beat, in which the air flashes brutally cold. And the two vanish completely.

And as they vanish, so do the colors, back out into the snow where both wizards now lay prone in the brush of the forest.]

[fallingsand]

[ If only Bruno could scream. There would be so much screaming if he could. It would have been regrettable for sure. Thankfully — or not, actually — the sensation of his soul being torn at, followed by the knowledge that he's dying... that Solomon is... was? Dying? It leaves any noise he could make on his own frozen in his throat and then he's violently ejected from the place where the younger Solomon is left.

He stares in confused horror as Barbatos moves towards the man. It isn't what he expected a demon to look like, ever. He looks too... too human... apart from the, uh. Parts. Those look demonic for sure.

But then the vision fades away, leaving the both of them sprawled out in the snow. He's been clutching his ruana tightly to his chest with both hands since being thrown back, struggling to get his breathing under control. Breathe in, breathe out, feel out the shield against the toxin, if it's still there.

Barely, but it is, for now. ]

Th-that was... was...? Wh-why was that s-so intense?

[impacter]

[Solomon stays prone until the memory ends, raw hands grasping at the snow as it comes back into sensation, exhale shuddering the length of his body. It's here, it's fine, this is still reality. He's in control now. Still in control.

He can hear Bruno's hyperventilating off to his side through the tinny muffling that dies down as the pain recedes. Wincing at how his head spins, Solomon pushes up to his knees, a loose hand against the back of Bruno's ruana.]

Bruno.

[Will he turn if Solomon tries to guide him with a push against his shoulder? Face him, please... but the man is so tense]

We'll... we'll have time for that in a moment.

Ground yourself. You're okay.

[fallingsand]

[ As tense as a bowstring but he will turn, however stiffly, to peek up at Solomon from under the shadow of curly hair. ]

Are we, though? Are we...?

[ He's trying his best to get his breathing under control. It becomes easier as the pain, the sensations, and all the horror drain away, fading alongside the memory of the past. It would have worked, too, if it wasn't for the crack of thunder that echoes far overhead before he truly has a chance to ground himself properly.

Despite the thick forest canopy overhead and the frozen wintery landscape around them, fat, warm raindrops can be felt beginning to trickle down. Bruno looks up with a startled jerk. ]

Wh-what? Rain?

[impacter]

[He means to reassure Bruno calmly. But the crack of noise above their head draws his attention quickly, the sharp change in temperature impossible to ignore.]

...And this warm, as well...

Bruno, stay with me for the moment. [Just in case. This one doesn't feel familiar to him in the slightest, so...

Is this something of Bruno's?]

[fallingsand]

[ Another crack of thunder, soon followed by a wind picking up, warm and humid and full of the threat of rain. The forest's foggy scenario rolls away, the ground creeping off into worn brick under them. Water dapples the dusty surface, but that's hardly the main point of interest here. Before them rises a chapel, adorned with flowers and wedding decorations, and that's when Bruno realizes exactly what this is.

Overhead, a ferocious storm brews, clouds dark and heavy. ]

...oh no...

[ Bruno whispers and struggles away from Solomon, stumbling to his feet as the gut-twisting terror and guilt set in. Similarly, the feelings will assault Solomon and they lay like a heavy burden, constantly on the edge of a panic attack. Once that sets in, the rest of the memory is kicked into motion, forms in the fog becoming clear.

Pepa, calm down, calm down! Who cares if it rains?

A short, stout man in formal clothes is just inside the doors of the chapel, trying to calm down an angry, yelling redhead in her wedding dress. She's in the midst of a nervous breakdown and that realization makes Bruno — and, unfortunately, also Solomon — feel ill.

It had only been a joke! A joke! He hadn't meant it! He wasn't predicting rain! He had just... he thought he could be funny and... but they assumed... again!

Panicked thoughts filter in but there's no way to approach, feet frozen in place, afraid to make things worse. ]