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

[foresightis2020]

[ Everything truly begins to come to a head, all at once.

Jing Yuan can only observe each and every action from beginning to end, keeping an eye as the dire memory mercilessly peels away into view the reactions as well as thoughts from the point of view assigned to him.

The sensations as well, the intensity — nothing seems to be held back in the slightest, and perhaps that makes it ever the more heavy. Soon enough, the feeling of something wrong invokes a feeling of dread — rightfully so, it seems, given what occurs next. Somehow, he feels that he internally recoils from the shock, eyebrows raising, mouth opening slightly, even if it be but brief. Then, he's watching, feeling those things — Robin's shout suddenly high and loud over the internal commotion, as everything continues. The appearance of those wings swiftly and their dispersal, perhaps, that scream without a voice — and then it all ends. ]

...So, that is what you meant when you were there for his death.

[ His voice is steady, and he is sorting through his own emotions, which he deftly yet swiftly discards lest he comes off as pitying the man — Jing Yuan has no desire to feel such things ever onto himself, and he suspects the same of Robin. He has already given his condolences; no need to repeat himself either, though even so, he can feel his heart aches. It reminds him of perhaps what happens with the Mara-Struck, but this is different...he feels. ]

Yet, I imagine that last spell from that man is what caused it, didn't it? There was the sense that something was wrong after you were hit...what an abominably wretched action for that accursed man to have taken.

[fellheart]

Blood magic. [ the man opposite him snarls, spitting out the words like a curse. he stalks back and forth through the forest, pacing like a caged animal, or a man possessed as the gale of a fell wind continues to billow around him. ] It would not have worked if I had been literally anybody else. If I weren't his damned son!

[ anyone else, who didn't have the same accursed blood as the dead sorcerer running through their veins.

can he salvage this? jing yuan's tone despite his efforts comes too close to pity, to sympathy for his liking. how does one represent oneself a monster when all that was felt in full? an observer's position, he could have worked with, could have played off.

his expression is— not controlled. there's a manic cast to it so very unlike the sardonic and unaffected, wryly amused if sometimes short-tempered ancient of the manor. ]

But now you know— the noble exalt you saw was felled ignobly. Not in battle, not in defense of his ideals, or to save someone else, but instead murdered simply because he placed his trust in the wrong person.

[foresightis2020]

[ When someone is caught up in such a turmoil, their heart along that which they wished to have hidden revealed out in the cold to be left with no way of salvaging from

He doesn't know how else to react outwardly, keeping his expression impassive, even when deep inside he knows that he can never bury the fact that he certainly knows what it's like to cut down someone you care about. But at least in his case he was in control of himself — but that person was not. He wonders if Jingliu felt much the same as Robin.

All the same, even as Robin says this, even as he states that it is because he placed his trust in the wrong person — he knows he does not agree.

But if he said as much, when such things have been ingrained deep in Robin's heart — his feelings, given to lash out as the wind whips mercilessly about them. He closes his eyes for a moment, and simply accepts that most of what he will have to say will not make things better. ]

You blame yourself for being there for that man to enact what he did, then.

...Yet, in the end, Chrom never blamed you. Perhaps because of how he is, or perhaps he suspected what happened.

[ He turns away from Robin, looking back at the forest set behind them. ]

I suppose you might wish that I would at least believe the same too. That I would agree to assign blame. But, as it is, I wouldn't be able to.

[ Chrom was murdered not simply because he trusted the wrong person, but because someone else played an underhanded move. Which, well, all moves are viable in a war. The fact that it was easier to utilize a spell on Robin because the putrid man was related to him was unfortunately what it was. He doesn't think convincing Robin that he shouldn't blame himself is possible at this time, though. ]

[fellheart]

Do you wish to test me right now? Yes, he looked at me, his murderer, and wasted his breath on telling me it was not my fault. What does that prove but that the man was too godsdamned forgiving as long as it was to the right face?

[ gods, but he hates chrom for making those his final words, and to the very one who killed him no less. it's nauseating. the prince who once bore his heart on his sleeve, who had to be chased around to keep from picking up every single stray, who so firmly said that he would be there to help if someone were to be hurt or in need... to the end, that prince died with thoughts of others on his tongue.

predictable. he's being too predictable, where is the mask that he's learned to wear—? ]

Someone who can be compromised so— in our line of work we call those liabilities, general. Surely a man of your position understands this? My job was to be the one who mitigated such things.

No matter how you try to dress it up, I am the one responsible for his death. Do not try to deny that.

[foresightis2020]

I believe it proved that he still had faith in you, even in the end.

[ Robin's state means that going about this gently would ruffle feathers. That going about it roughly would certainly not be his style in general, so he isn't about to change it. Going about it pragmatically would still ruffle feathers ("You were mind controlled, so how can it essentially be your fault when you were set up to fail?")

So, he just concedes that this is how it'll be. Besides, he isn't about to turn around and call Robin a monster now. No, refuses to.

If that further chafes him like cold wind exposed to anyone, then...that is how it will be. ]

...Is what I'm saying dressing it up? I simply call it how I see it.

I believe I understand why you would not wish to absolve yourself of such actions. The man was a dear friend, and you regret having a part in it. From a solely isolated observer's standpoint without considering all the details, your presence means he fell, and you indeed became a liability to him.

As for myself, I cannot consider the putrid man involved to be blameless. He has great fault for engineering this conclusion. I see no reason not to factor that into this as well, or to ignore such a fact.

[fellheart]

And it was my job to account for the heinousness of such men. We'll be at a standstill if we keep trying to argue around this particular point.

[ abruptly he stops, his coat settling more slowly behind him as the gale dies down into a more restrained eddy. a quiet growl through gritted teeth, before he glances back over his shoulder to fix jing yuan with a sharp look. ]

Why do you even care? Why bother to try to convince me that I was some unfortunate, hapless victim in this?

[foresightis2020]

[ Jing Yuan gives the other a brief, wry smile as if to concede that point.

But also perhaps a reminder of what his own argument will be; it seems even surprisingly he can be quite stubborn in his own way though Jing Yuan prefers oftentimes not to make that obvious. It just isn't his way. ]

...An unfortunate, hapless victim?

Robin, I do not see you as 'unfortunate', nor someone who can be considered pitiful. Those who are strong can be taken advantage of. That remains the truth, no matter how difficult it is to come to terms with — though, it doesn't make oneself weak or pathetic. It is simply a fact of life.

Yet, all the same, I also care not for men such as this managing to gain the last laugh. One can argue that he already has, with your dear friend dead. But, I imagine he did this because he wished to propel you into despair or path; he seems exactly like that wretched type of man.

Rather than convincing, I suppose it comes down to the fact that I see no reason for me to not care about what you think of yourself or what happens to you regardless. I recognize that this doesn't mean I will be able to necessarily change your opinion. Though, it doesn't mean I have to agree with it either.

[ Jing Yuan states this firmly. He does not beg or ask for Robin to change his mind, but he also does not meekly accept that point of view. Robin is certainly more than what this man wanted him to become. He believes firmly in the end that Chrom saw that; and his own way, he sees it (knows it now, from that memory) too. ]

[fellheart]

A fact of—

[ when jing yuan says despair, when jing yuan talks of a path, of what happens to him after, robin can only let out a harsh bark of a laugh.

(it was a mistake, perhaps, to still use the name 'robin'.) ]

No reason not to care, you say. You have no idea who I have been, or what I have or haven't done since, general.

Stem your bleeding heart before someone not nearly so kind does it for you.

[ whatever chrom saw in the man (whatever jing yuan supposedly now sees in him too) ... will not be in plain sight for much longer, it seems, because with a muttered, baleful incantation, he casts a spell purely to invoke a sharp, blinding light around them, glaringly harsh after the dark of the memory.

by the time the light fades, only a single feather lingers on the forest floor.

well. that certainly seems an end to whatever conversation they might have been having. ]

[foresightis2020]

[ ...

Well, that ended exactly how Jing Yuan expected it to have, so he's actually not entirely surprised about that.

But, he doesn't dare to chase after Robin following that.

Still, they're not through just yet, either. Though that will be for another time. For now...even in the silence of the cold, of the feather he curiously picks up, Jing Yuan turns on his heel and begins to head back.

He'll...take his time because he sure was blinded, but he will be just fine otherwise. ]