lunaecalamitas | thousand dreams, lotus boats upon the waters

thousand dreams, lotus boats upon the waters

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

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( Mika pauses, looking up from his decidedly emo task (emo because Mika is doing it; the task itself is surely neutral) - probably a book. After a moment, he sets it down. )

... Got what to work?

[ Stop being emo, emo kid! Which is something Bruno would never say but that's chiefly due to not having 'emo' in his vocabulary. ]

The... the thing! Y'know, the tea! The. The blood tea?

( Mika stares at Bruno for a few moments, the concept not at all ringing. He knows Bruno is kind of this tea guy (he has the scent of it, probably), but... blood tea... what...

Then - Oh. Oh - right - ah - jeez, he was so fried when they last spoke.

... Bruno actually did it???? )

... You made it work??

( Literally just repeating Bruno but. It's possible ??? Did he taste it himself or...??? It's possible ?? )

Yes! Aaand... I... also made the tea I swapped the flavors with taste like blood. So. Yep.

[ He did taste it. He tasted both. He's been doing this for awhile. He probably smells like blood in addition to what is definitely mint tea, assuming vampire senses are simply that good. ]

( .......................???????????????????????? )

Did you actually taste test it? Don't tell me you did. You know humans shouldn't be putting blood in their mouths, right? You're one of the people here who specializes in healing, we can't really afford...

( He sounds like he's scolding Bruno, and he is, but also - there's an undercurrent of confusion. His vampire senses are just that good, so he's very, like, why go that far for me? someone like me?

He's... not ungrateful; he's curious about the tea, even. But he's - struggling to understand, especially if Bruno put himself at risk somehow. (He'd be willing to believe magic eliminated cause for disease, but he's not going to assume safety when there's risk of things going wrong, like their last conversation probably proved.) )

Y... well, yes? How else am I supposed to know if it worked? [ ????? Mika??? Hello??? ] It's fine! It. It was my blood, okay? That should be fine?

[ If there's anything that's going to make Bruno sick in his own blood, then it's a little bit too late to worry about that. He is full of his own blood, after all. That's how blood usually works. ]

( guy who was 12 when the apocalypse happened vs guy who is 50 but oblivious to modern medicine )

That's not fine! Humans get super sick if they drink blood. Even their own. If you wanted it to be, like, a surprise, just ask Malice, okay?

( Why are humans so... bad at staying alive where it counts??? why do only the worst humans know how to stay alive, )

You haven't been feeling weird, right? Like... sick... or something.

( He doesn't actually know what illness from drinking blood looks like, he just knows it's bad... )

C'mon, I was only testing with little teaspoons of it. I didn't go on and drink a whole cup or anything. I knew I'd probably freak out if I... uh... tried that... off the bat, y'know?

[ If he looked at small amounts of blood, he could get used to it. It's been helpful! Maybe he won't freak out as badly as before, with the whole ghost dilemma. ]

( Mika looks like an exceptionally suspicious cat, who does not know whether it wants to trust what Bruno says or not. )

... Forget "off the bat" - don't try that ever.

( Frustrated huff. Don't make him tea and Immediately Die!!!!!!!!! (Mika POV.) )

... Where's the tea.

( the tea you're DYING FOR :/

... But Bruno seems okay - Mika can hear his general pulse and his health, and it seems normalish (this isn't an exact science, and he is not a doctor), so he'll allow Bruno to present his cool science project... for now. )

[ Bruno could argue this point further. Like, where else was he getting blood from? Could Mika even have animal blood? Should he have hit up a butcher? He has questions, Mika! Questions!

But first, the tea. ]

C'mon, let's get to the kitchen before Shinji finds it.

[ And Bruno also gets himself banned from the kitchen. Go, go, go. Admittedly, he does fumble a step on the way down the stairs, but he'll catch himself against the bannister before anything terrible happens. It's fine. He's fine! Onward, to the kitchen!

Where there will, in fact, be two cups of "tea". One is real tea and it smells like it, sure enough, and the other isn't quite as full but is most definitely blood. It still smells like blood, too. ]

I, uh, swapped the tastes, but not the smells. I. I wasn't sure if it smelling like mint would make you nervous or something.

( The answer to all those questions is "you should let me starve and be miserable" so actually,

That Bruno stumbles gives Mika a start - he'd have caught him if Bruno had not caught himself - and has him questioning the wisdom of Bruno's choices. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), Mika does not ascribe to the idea of being needlessly aggressive to get people to leave him alone - the thought does not occur to him - but it does leave him feeling somewhat helpless when he can't do much in the face of people caring for him anyway, against his wishes.

He seems pensive as they approach the cups, and... man, he still doesn't know how to feel. The worry overshadows the appreciation. Had he been pulled into this world a few weeks prior, he'd have callously rejected the blood; but, being from when he is and having gone through what he has here, the idea of casting this aside sits uneasy in his stomach, as if he'd have hurt Bruno himself and walked off while he's still bleeding. (It's really not that serious, but guilt does things to the dumb, teenage mind.) )

... It's probably going to be weird either way, but. ( A beat. ) Leaving it smelling like blood is probably better. I rely on scent to distinguish certain things when I'm not thinking straight.

( How tragic would it be if his wires got crossed enough that he goes into a tea stash next time he's starving... (Well, it'd be funny for anyone not Mika, probably.)

Anyway, he'll tentatively pick up the cup, and, after glancing at Bruno as if to determine if he's like, doing this right??? (does it need to be activated? do you just drink it?), he will, very hesitantly, take a sippie. )

[ It's fine! He's fine. He'll be fine. He ate some wizard sugar and everything, although he doesn't see much point in going into great detail about how he's taken care of himself the best he can. Overall, it wasn't only for Mika, but it gave him a reason to look at blood, work with it, and try to get over that urge to panic at the sight of it being spilled.

In a way, it has helped, even if having to fill nearly a whole teacup with his own blood after all the testing with tiny amounts has left him feeling a tad light-headed. ]

Right. So keep it smelling like blood. That's good to know.

[ But now for the real test. Bruno watches closely as Mika picks up the cup. When he glances at him, he'll nod. There's nothing else to do. It's all ready! And when Mika goes in for that lil' sip, it'll taste exactly how Bruno hoped it would.

It tastes like a very flavorful mint tea, sweetened with honey. ]

( Mika's always had a weird relationship with food and consumption.

His parents rarely truly fed him, but he fed a little better in the orphanage; the food was often bland, but it tasted good, he thinks, because of the company. In Sanguiem, they were barely fed at all - but the orphans fed at orphanage quality once Mika courted Ferid for food. On Mika's tongue, though, it had no taste; every spoonful a memory of the degradation he peddled to have it. (It was enough that his family was happy, is all.) And once he became a vampire - well.

The tinge of blood has always been bitter at the back of his throat, unwelcome hunger ever nipping at his heels.

So he doesn't know what he expects. Largely, he expected it not to work. Like - he would taste it, and despite Bruno's best efforts, it'd still just taste like blood. Or - it would have worked, but his curse would make him cough it up. You know. No happy ending. But he was willing to entertain it, because Bruno clearly really tried and sacrificed.

But if he had to be optimistic, against his nature: given everything, maybe, at best, he expected - bland, and all right. (That would already be exceptional, for what he understands to be flavored water.) Ginger has been trying to flavor the blood in his body his own way - and Mika can't say there's been no taste at all. It's just still overwhelmingly blood in flavor, and that seems to reside within the bounds Mika's allowed.

But that would still be something - miraculous, to taste blood that tastes like tea without flavor. God has been irate with him since he was born, and turned His back on him fully when he died. This would never happen in a million years, but if it did, he'd still be grateful for terrible, flavorless tea— but that the curse would have a crack that'd allow him the taste of anything would be... it should be impossible.

But it isn't, and the full taste hits his tongue, and it isn't bland, and it isn't nothing.

It's actually, really rather nice. )

( And he might be ruining it a little bit, because, strangely, he's starting to tear up, his cup still at his lips, as if reluctant to pull it away.

...

He takes another sip, deeper this time, quiet for a long few moments as he savors it.

Very softly: )

... It tastes really good.

[ Bruno looks on in concern, though only briefly. Those tears... How long has it been since Mika's tasted anything other than blood? Years? So instead of fretting over those tears, he offers a faint smile. ]

Yeah? I'm glad to hear that. I... I bet we could swap all sorts of flavors into blood for ya.

( ...

After a moment, he's finally willing to part the cup from his lips, his gaze falling down to the cup; seeing the blood for what it is, its scent still strong. And yet... )

... You only have so much. ( Softly - not a tone he often takes on. ) ... I can wait.

( And he can. He's not gonna be greedy. This is already... a lot.

... )

... Do you think it'd be wrong if we did make it look and smell like real tea?

( In total contradiction with what he said before - and a step further, even. What he said before was purely pragmatic, predicated on the presumption he'd remain resigned to his life as a monster. But this changes things - in a way he could not fathom.

But in a sense, he's unsure - uneasy, and that much creeps into his otherwise grateful demeanor. He seems a little like he's worried the other shoe is going to drop, like - is it really okay for him to experience this? Is something bad going to happen to either of them because of it? Would God punish them, somehow?

It's all irrational, but it's just as vibrant in his heart as the sweet taste of this hot tea on his cold, corpselike tongue. )

I mean, I could show you how to do the spell or. Or anyone, really? I'm not going to sit here and bleed all over the place if that's what you thought.

[ See? It's fine, it's fiiine, everything is fine. Even if, well, Bruno might anyway, if asked. Mika looks so taken by the tea, it would be hard to say no. As to the smell... ]

Oh, uh, yeah. I could add that. [ He won't bring up that Mika had been saying not to do that only a moment ago. That feels cruel to do. If the poor kid wants to be selfish over something so little, who's to stop him? ] That was a part of the full spell. I just... I pulled that part since I wasn't sure, y'know?

( ...

Sips more... )

... Why did you do all this...?

[ Now that's a question that catches Bruno off-guard. ]

Why did I...? Do... do I need a reason?

... It cost you a lot of blood. And... I could tell you were ( are? ) super squeamish about that kind of injury. You seem like... a normal person.

( Even with the prophecy stuff! Which is maybe a feat in itself. )

You don't deal with vampires and monsters and weird blood stuff normally. Isn't this above your paygrade?

...mm, I wouldn't say normal, but...

[ Mika, please, he's a very odd human. ]

I don't know? I... don't have a reason? I just thought, I dunno, that it isn't fair you don't get to enjoy the same stuff we do? I've tried the blood. It tastes terrible.

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thousand dreams, lotus boats upon the waters

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