tushanshu_logs | [EVENT | FOURTH WALL] THE DREAMING'S FLATULENCE

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[EVENT | FOURTH WALL] THE DREAMING'S FLATULENCE | APRIL 15-30

Characters: ALL and plus ones. (Yes, fourth-wall characters, that means you.)
Date: April 15-30 2016 (2017 in-game)
Location: Mod-posted comment starters are for the immediate aftermath of the odd explosion which starts the event, but this log can also be used for anywhere in the setting anytime between April 15-30.
Situation: The College went BOOM. Weird people began appearing randomly in the city. After that, other buildings went BOOM even though nothing actually exploded besides the College. After that, scattered buildings developed spontaneous structural damage overnight. Could these events be related? You be the judge.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings in subject headers as needed.

The morning of April 15th dawns cold, but clear. There isn't a cloud in the sky, the sun's barely risen, and in general the kedan are going about their daily lives - opening shops, heading to work, leading kirin through the city streets. In particular, there's a small but steady stream of people moving in and out of the College.

Then, without warning, a section of the College implodes.

During the following few days, an influx of strange Foreigners appear, seemingly dropped randomly by the Dreaming throughout Keeliai. Someone might end up in a canal, or on a rooftop. Someone else might find themselves flying through the air to land heavily in a disused alley. Someone might wake up in the corner of a kirin stable. A few might even land in Hatal on the mainland, and feel a curious draw leading them back towards the turtle. They arrive in the same unexpected manner as normal Foreigners; the only differences are the sheer amount of people arriving at once, and that none of the newcomers seem to possess any soul gems.

Also during the next few days, kedan and Foreigner alike might be startled by an exact replica of that thunderous boom from the College explosion echoing around Keeliai. This only occurs for about a week, but it occurs regularly, and the source of these strange echoes is impossible to trace.

Once the explosion echoes stop, investigators might notice that specific and exact sections of structural damage from the College appear on other buildings in Keeliai without any obvious cause. These cases of spontaneous long-term damage continue all the way through until April 30th.

Apart from those disruptions, life on the turtle is generally normal for the next two weeks - or as normal as it's possible for life to be when one lives on the back of a turtle where the most powerful gang makes the rules. No one can say for sure exactly when the strange Foreigners vanish again. Some will swear they all vanished at once; others will be equally sure they disappeared one by one over several days. One thing's for sure, however -- by the time April 30th draws to a close, not one of the strange Foreigners is left in Keeliai.

LINKS
The College | The Echoes | The Structural Damage | OOC Information post | Fourth-Wall Character Check-In

OOC
The top-level comments are for the explosion and its aftermath, but fourth-wall characters should feel free to use the rest of the post for anything within the setting! Just remember to label the top-level comment for location and date. You can also add more fourth-wall characters throughout the event at the character check-in, linked above. Please direct any questions to the OOC post.

Fourth-wall characters are also free to tag into player-posted logs and console/radio posts dated between April 15th and 30th! A quick reminder that fourth-wall characters will not have soul jewelry, and will not be able to create their own network posts or logs.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

For about a week after the initial explosion at the College, there are echoes of the sound of the blast around the city. Each of the echoes is self-contained -- they're not 'echoes' in the traditional sense. In fact, the first time one happens, kedan flock to the College absolutely sure that another explosion has occurred, but none has.

The echoes sound every hour or so, though there's no discernable pattern to the lengths of time in between them. On the 15th and 16th, everyone in the city is confused and terrified, unsure if any of the sounds belong to a second explosion, or if they're heralds of worse things to come. By the 17th, however, the echoes are accepted as another of those strange tricks the Dreaming likes to play, and the kedan barely flinch as they go about their everyday lives. The echoes continue until around the 23rd, when they abruptly cease sometime during the night.

Any source of the echoes is impossible to trace. Some of them sound like they come from the College; others sound like they come from a tavern, or a house, or a shop. More than once a shopkeeper jumps at the sound of her store falling apart and rushes to rescue her merchandise, only to discover nothing broken or even out of place. The echoes can happen anywhere at any time -- they're totally unpredictable and oftentimes a shock to those nearby, but apart from the noise, they're harmless.

One moment, Hopeless had been walking down a street in Dublin; the next, he's walking down another street entirely. The effect is so subtle that he might not have noticed, except for the glitch in the minds around him, the little burp between daily living in Dublin versus daily living in Keeliai.

Even the subtle tension isn't much different, with the way Dublin is gearing up, the mortal wars, the belligerence toward the English.

He eavesdrops enough to know that it isn't uncommon, for people to suddenly appear--to know he wasn't shunted by some random bystander. That's one relief down. He eavesdrops a little more, to find out why the tension, to find out about the bombing and the attacks in their civic leaders.

By which point his head is aching, and he's generally found the best way to handle that when there isn't a painkiller in sight is to go and help somebody--ease their emotions, ease the pressure on his mind, give himself something to focus on other than the ache.

Hopeless can be found anywhere the echoes sound, clad in boots and trousers and a sweater which had been fashionable in the early 1900s, and a long fraying--but well-kept--coat, and a blue knitted scarf which wraps twice around his neck and still falls nearly to his waist. Generally he's offering kind smiles, tea traded from market stalls, comforting frightened children in plain sight while adults inspect areas they're afraid are damaged.

All the while he lets people chatter at him if they're afraid, or speaks with a gentle soothing voice which defuses tension and snappishness, or offers to run errands to get vital amenities--like tea and food.

It's helping. People are calmer in areas when he leaves them, his brow furrowed as he tracks the explosive echoes one by one. As far as he knows, he's got nowhere special to be until he's absorbed more of the unspoken nature of Keeliai.

[ooc: His final interaction will be with Raine, as she will take him places. Otherwise, Hopeless is a mind-reader! He can't turn it off but he tries very hard not to look too deeply, and I'm playing him as if the Dreaming is futzing with things as needed, so if you don't want him to hear thoughts at all, just let me know. Permissions/full explanations are here.]

Edited 2016-04-16 06:22 (UTC)

The echoes usually attract Raine's attention. She helps with the wounded from the first explosion, of course, dispatching healers from the Guild with herself to do so, and so afterward every sound of an explosion draws her to the scene where it's feasible, looking around to make sure there truly aren't any wounded. She calms people where she can, though her way with people has always been a little cooler, more brisk than is strictly optimal for soothing.

Fortunately, many of her healers have better bedside manners.

In this case she has arrived at the scene and found nothing awry but the worried people. Raine checks among them anyway, making sure of no injuries, and in passing she sees someone who looks familiar. She has to double-take to be sure, but--

She's seen that face before. An image, shown to her by a man who never really stopped grieving.

Hopeless, she thinks, and starts for him. He's some distance away by now, and she isn't sure, but she needs to see. If it is him-- well. There are some things he will need to know.

It's like a beacon, that thought, his name; a ray which cuts past the babble, both mental and physical, and so directed even by accident--in an unfamiliar voice--that he stops and turns as if she'd shouted it over the crowd. Only the Dead Men mentally called his name like that.

By the time he thinks to check himself it's already too late, and instead his gaze finds the white-haired woman whose mental voice matches the one who had shouted.

She knows him--but he's never seen her before. But she knows him, and attached to the recognition overtones of sympathy in witnessing a heartwrenching grief fit to bring tears to his eyes even before he knows the whys and hows.

Grief for him.

Oh, no.

Edited 2016-04-17 06:18 (UTC)

He turns to focus on her, and she hasn't even said anything. Raine isn't entirely surprised -- it means he is exactly who she thought he might be. Hopeless. The mind-reader; the Dead Man whose loss was such a terrible tipping-point for Erskine.

His stopping gives her time to catch up to him, at least, and she comes to a halt only a few paces away from him. He looks somewhat distressed, to say the least, and Raine is reminded of his talents, and how little she knows about the specifics. She can't be sure how much Hopeless can read from her, and given the turn of her thoughts upon seeing him, it's likely that he's picked up more than a little bit about Erskine. How much, though...

It isn't that she minds the potential of having a partially non-verbal conversation, but she'd prefer to know what Hopeless knows. Aloud will be better, for now. "I'm Raine Sage," she says aloud, bowing slightly for a more proper greeting. "And you're Hopeless, aren't you? I'm assuming you have questions."

"No," Hopeless says quietly, "not really." His gaze is fixed on her, has been since she called his name; and she knows, which means he doesn't have to hide. There's nothing in her that recoils from what he can do--what she knows he is doing--but rather a brisk need for efficiency.

After a second he musters a smile, but it's one that's more on the mouth than in the eyes; genuine-seeming, but only to someone who doesn't know how he usually smiles. "Hello, Raine. It's my pleasure to meet you. You're right; verbal communication is generally more efficient, if it needs to be two ways."

In the middle of battle, giving warnings and orders, it's less necessary.

"Thank you for not recoiling," he adds, a touch plaintively. That would have hurt. It always hurts. The fact that she doesn't, even in her mind, says a lot about her priorities.

Raine isn't completely certain, since she only saw his projection for a little while, but that doesn't quite look like a smile that's wholly felt. She tilts her head a little to the side-- a gesture she had well before she met Skulduggery, like she means to study Hopeless from a slightly different angle, like that will reveal more of what he knows to her. "Did you learn everything you needed to know so quickly, then?" she wants to know.

Well, she doesn't know how long he's been here, after all, and he's likely learned a great deal by simply observing. It's possible then that Hopeless doesn't need any questions about the city answered, which leaves the specific situation of the Dead Men. Her thoughts keep circling back to Erskine, dwelling more on the worst she's seen of him in those hopelessly broken moments-- and then Raine recognizes that, and frowns at herself, and very consciously recalls a time more recent, a peaceable walk for lunch and sunlight gilding the edges of Erskine's smile.

"I know your reputation," she says aloud. "Those who have spoken of you speak well. Even if you were to stumble on something I'd prefer you didn't, I'm inclined to trust that you wouldn't use that knowledge for ill."

She's right. There are still questions, specifics to discover--but Hopeless doesn't strictly need to ask questions to get them. He doesn't manage to say that, though; the images in Raine's head make his breath catch and the tears stand out in his eyes, and his hand lifts to press against his mouth.

The last image, the one of Erskine's lovely, radiant smile, makes his breath catch again, if for the opposite reason.

It takes a moment to gather himself again, to answer Raine's partly self-directed contemplation. "Spend enough time with you, and I'd see your all. Your only choice would be to avoid me. I'd--" Erskine broken. Erskine defeated, crying, gazing at a ghost.

Confessing.

Oh, my Heavenly Father, hallowed be thy name ...

"I don't suppose there's anywhere more private we can go?" Hopeless asks, admirably even but with a raw edge to accompany the tears in his eyes and the way he'd drawn in to hug himself.

Raine winces a little as Hopeless attempts to find his composure again. "My apologies," she says, quietly, reasonably sure it was her line of thought which spurred this. She's going to have to be somewhat more careful where her thoughts go, perhaps, at least for the moment. "I-- yes, our apartment isn't that far from here, and I believe my fiancé's still out for the day. This way."

She wonders briefly about Solomon, and Hopeless' feelings thereon -- she knows Solomon's association with Skulduggery, of course, and his relationship with Erskine is antagonistic to say the least, but Anton has seemed mostly content to live and let live, after his one cursory warning.

Then she realizes that by allowing herself to wonder she has effectively asked the question, and she sighs ruefully. Yes; that really will take some getting used to. "...In any case, it's not something you can help, correct? Therefore, either I must choose to trust your judgment, or avoid you entirely for something you had no choice in."

"It isn't," Hopeless agrees, a little distractedly because he's parsing between what Raine is trying not to show him and what he's nevertheless seen. "Thank you. Not many people would think of it like that."

Most would try to kill him.

But then, because it's better than dwelling on everything else, and because Raine has sort-of brought it up with her acknowledgement, Hopeless seizes on the change of subject. "Congratulations," he adds, mustering a truer smile than before. "I've met Solomon once or twice--not really under good circumstances--but he's always stuck out to me as being an odd fit for where he was. I'm glad to hear he's sorted his priorities."

Especially given the intentions of the Temple. That had been their first meeting; right after Vile left the Temple in disarray, not long after Solomon had been made cleric and granted the distinction of privileged information.

The last, of course, had been in America.

As far as Raine understands it, some sorcerers can choose, and some, like Anton, don't really get the opportunity. She's assuming Hopeless didn't choose something like this. "I suspect you have some idea why I might," she says, levelly, and she points out the right direction, starts walking them back toward the apartment. Her heritage is not a place to dwell.

Good thoughts of Solomon are likely a better mental direction right now, in any case, and Raine smiles softly in return. "Thank you," she says. He has changed, even from the man she first met here, and she can't imagine how stark the difference must be for someone who first met him in the depths of the Temple. "That's one of the benefits of this city-- it often allows people to be something truer to themselves, free of the strictures their situation at home places on them. Solomon is... a good man, at his heart." It's something she wishes more people would catch, under the sarcasm.

"Not until now." His smile is a bit more wry, now, as he glances at her sidelong. The shift in subject helps. The undercurrent of anguish and sympathy is still there, but it's covered; easier to digest its presents, when it's not at the forefront, until he's more capable of hearing the details.

People don't wear their race, their culture, on their sleeves. They wear them deep inside them, where it's a part of their identity so intrinsically that unless they think on it for a reason, he doesn't hear it right away.

But her last words, unintentioned, strike at that same subject they're not thinking about. Hopeless's smile slips. "Even good men can make terrible mistakes. Especially when they're trying to be good."

Interesting. Something so integral to her identity, which she considers as having shaped the vast majority of her life, doesn't come up until she consciously thinks on it. Raine adjusts a few parameters regarding how she thinks of Hopeless' magic, and continues.

Mithos, she thinks at his last, and sighs a little. It isn't the first time that thought has come up, regarding some of the things her friends have done. Yes: it's entirely possible for good men to do terrible things.

They are not in private yet. At home, there will be tea, and Raine presumes somewhat less background noise, and they will be freer to go into more detail. Raine points Hopeless around a corner -- thank goodness it isn't far -- and asks a question she's been halfway considering since she consciously considered her elven heritage. "Can you feel mana?" she asks, both as a point of genuine curiosity and a quiet distraction. "Through me, that is."

"Is that what that is," Hopeless murmurs thoughtfully, his face tilting up as if to feel the sun, and eyes half-closed. That made it easier to feel her senses, and concentrate on them; he couldn't control them himself, of course, but he could examine them in a vaguely objective fashion, by comparing her sense to the ones belonging to people around them. "Yes, I can."

He opens his eyes and looks at her more properly as they turn the corner. "It's a matter of awareness," he explains. "The things most important to you are internalised. You don't have to think about them, and most of the time you don't question them; they just are. The more active sort, like the mana, I can feel as one of your senses--but that doesn't mean I know what it is without a little more information."

He smiles wryly. "My magic requires accepting a lot of things on faith."

Potential, and energy, and the solid certainty of every living thing. That's what that is. Illogically, this alone warms her to him slightly more; usually explaining mana, explaining what having a sense that humans simply don't is like, comes out slightly wrong in any case, close enough but not accurate.

She listens as he explains in more detail, nodding her comprehension. "In other words, for the most part something like mana would be just an undercurrent, but if I focus on it--" And she pauses, to make conscious what's ordinarily second-nature, sorting through the various flickers of life around them. Hopeless is the only one in the immediate vicinity who has the the particularly human cast to his presence. "--then it's like reading: you have available what's on the page in front of you." While he may know other parts of the book, by virtue of having a summary available or previous exposure to the title or any other of a number of metaphors Raine could draw, it's very much just another sense: limited to the present moment.

Raine doesn't quite understand, though, how he can simply accept things on faith, especially about such an integral part of his life. She would have so very many questions, in his place. "How?" she asks aloud, linking thought to question.

The sudden sharpening of mana-sense made Hopeless's breath catch. The ability to see himself was disorienting, but he was used to it; the widespread threads around them were almost more overwhelming, when accompanied with his own sense of their minds.

"Yes," he agreed, focussing on Raine's words, on her step, even though he ... wasn't really paying attention to his own. Wasn't really seeing his own. "Present moment, yes--but there are a lot of present moments. People have tiny thoughts they don't notice, and they have them all the time. Think of it more like a deep pool of water but with a current which lifts things to the surface. Sooner or later, everything on the bottom will rise, even if for just a moment at any given time. I notice those moments, if I'm near enough, and I can put them together into a whole. But, yes, when you deliberately raise something to the surface--it's easier to see."

The network of mana faded as Raine asked her second question, but Hopeless didn't answer right away, in favour of blinking and reorienting himself to more usual senses. "Because the alternative is to try and get inside someone's head in a very literal sense," he said after a moment, "and map what physically happens when thoughts occur, where senses lay. I can't do that, so I need to accept that the patterns I observe are there."

The nuance he was giving her was fascinating, and Raine was rapidly assembling a much better picture of how his magic must work. "Do images travel?" she wondered next. "Or is it simply-- impressions? Something much more vague than that? I assume everyone you meet must think a little bit differently..." Different voices would seem the appropriate analogy to draw, from her perspective, but perhaps there was more to it than that. Since reading a mind also involved picking up their sensory input...

That could be exceptionally overwhelming, couldn't it. It was a wonder Hopeless focused as well as he did, if that was the case, though he certainly had had time to practice.

"It is possible, to an extent," Raine pointed out. "Even if your magic doesn't allow it explicitly, there are people here who have the tools to scan brains, map neural activity-- it would be possible to see where what you read corresponds to that, at least, if you wanted. But... hm." Their apartment was within range; she was fishing through her jacket pocket for her key even as she tried to shape the question she wanted. "Beginning with what you observe is the best starting point, for the scientific method."

"They travel," Hopeless confirmed. "Thoughts, feelings, impressions--sometimes I get strong nostalgia from a smell too far for me to smell, just because I can feel it in someone closer. For instance."

He smiled slightly, a wry, lopsided thing. "I experienced some ... less-than-good things in my childhood which nevertheless lent me the ability to ignore the majority of what I hear as background noise, let's just say."

It was answering a question she hadn't actually asked, and he'd done it almost without thinking, because she knew and knew that he did. But after the fact, the answer came with a little thrill of duel horror and relief, and he moved on before it could grab hold. "That sort of technology doesn't exist in my era--though I've met a man who's certain above and beyond capable of inventing them."

The last, rather enthusiastically; Tesla had his own problems, and wasn't always a nice man, but a genius--yes, absolutely.

"Fascinating," Raine said without entirely meaning to, eyes alight with curiosity and the joy of discovery. Certainly it had its downsides -- as Hopeless had just told her, answering the question she hadn't quite asked aloud -- but the sheer breadth of perception it lent him must be incredible. And further, unlike many, he would be entirely aware of his own subjectivity. To be able to see how others perceived the world would surely mean better understanding, and though she reminded herself rather forcibly that his magic was not without its tradeoffs, there was something simply marvelous about it as well.

When they came to their apartment she nudged the door open wider for Hopeless to follow her, and leaned her staff in its accustomed corner by the door. "Do you want tea?" she inquired as she did. That she was competent with, and no one had yet complained. "There are people here from all different eras-- yourselves, of course, and I believe Enjolras was from eighteenth century Paris. The twenty-first century seems popular, however. Some of them brought their technology, so if you're curious, there are any number of things to experiment with."

"Yes, please. Chamomile or something similar, if you have it." Hopeless followed her in and closed the door quietly, glancing around the apartment. It was that slightly-messy state of two people who were often gone, but considered it their home; possibly more so owing to the fact that one was blind.

"If I was here for long, I would be interested in talking to them," Hopeless admitted wistfully. He followed Raine properly into the apartment. "But I don't have a soul-gem."

It hadn't been such a bad thing when he'd learned that, before. Knowing what he knows now, the words make his chest twist, though they come out evenly.

"Something similar. Many herbs aren't quite the same here. I take it you're after the calming properties." Raine headed into the kitchen, reaching up to the cupboards. She started with the wrong one, opened it, stared at the spices for a moment before closing the door and locating the tea. There was a local herb that was good for that when made into tea, which she reached down now.

"Don't have a-- ah." Raine was frowning as she filled the kettle and set water on to boil. Hopeless would have picked up the details relatively quickly, and she herself remembered what it had meant, the last time that had happened. Hopeless would only have so long in Keeliai.

So he would want to capitalize on what time he did have as much as possible, and, to that end, Raine would help as much as she could. "Where do you want me to begin?"

[to here]

Edited 2016-05-12 09:45 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[EVENT | FOURTH WALL] THE DREAMING'S FLATULENCE | APRIL 15-30

THE ECHOES

15TH; OTA & RAINE

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