SIEGE TO THE PALACE

[andaway]

Characters: Everyone involved in the player missions
Date: 18th May
Location: The Palace
Situation: It's been too long since Malicant took over the palace, and it's time the foreigners did whatever they could to take it back. They might find out more than they had expected to find in the process.
Warnings/Rating: Fighting and shit? Please poke me if this needs to be changed.


Maybe you heard Superman suggesting they met up on the radio, trying to get as many people possible together for an attack that might prove unsuccessful, but would at least distract Malicant enough to get some information. Maybe you agreed to meet up and were talked into an open attack. Maybe you were talked into it by someone, dragged into a fight you wouldn't normally be part of otherwise Maybe your friends and you decided to take matters into your own hands, get together to try to attack the palace yourself and get something out of it.

Whichever the reason, there is no going back now. There's a yell, and suddenly... the attack begins.

[OOC: An open thread for the initial attack and threads for each mission will be added to this log. The idea is for a big battle to start with, and the teams to be divided naturally. Like I said, everyone gets a chance to fight! I added a questions thread just in case, if you aren't sure about something one of us will do our best to answer.]

Comments

[denyamenti]

"The entrance to the prison was through the Throne Room," Bakura said, the surety of the statement seemingly at odds with his previous one that he'd never been in the Palace before. There was an ache building in the back of his head, like a rising pressure trapped inside the skull and his ghosts were noisily agitated; Rex and Raine may not have been able to hear them, but it was clear and distinct for the thief whose soul they were attached to.

The tunnel widens, the slope decreasing and coming up level and the trio emerges into a long, elliptical room with heavy barred doors set at regular intervals, many of which were hanging open. Yet there were no guards down here and no, from cursory glance and near-deafening silence, prisoners either.

"Prison it is," the thief said dryly. "How anticlimactic."

[ruinsprofessor]

"But you've never bothered to come here." Raine's tone was neutral, no accusation, just a request for clarification. "It looks like they sought the prisoners, then."

In the absence of guards or any other obvious danger, she went to look over the cells, looking for some sign of confirmation that there were people there. The prison might not even have been in use, for all she knew. "The only reason they'd need to tunnel in is if the primary entrance was impassable. Perhaps the palace isn't completely compromised?"

She was in and out of three of the opened cells before she paused, focused on the graffiti on one of the walls. It did not prove to be something she could make sense of by staring longer. "Can either of you read this?"

[deusrexmachina]

As they entered the prison, Rex broke away from the other two momentarily, using the infrared setting on his goggles to make sure they were truly alone. As he shut it off and turned back at the sound of Raine's voice, however, he thought he saw something out of the corner of one eye. Glancing back revealed nothing of interest, so he shook it off as a trick of what little light was present and went to join Raine.

Entering the cell, Rex built up the Block Party and refrained from activating its shield. Instead, he held up one of the gauntlets, able to concentrate the glow emanating from the disc on the back so that it better illuminated the wall.

His eyes narrowed as he examined the dark marks, which looked like they'd been put there with a less than steady hand. "I can't, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that's not written in ink or paint."

[denyamenti]

"Not once," Bakura answered, with a flash of cheekiness; despite everything and their surroundings, he was actually in good humour. He shook his head at Raine's question of whether he could read the kedanese graffiti, he could identify certain gang symbols simply from having spent many a night in their territory but none of those were present down here.

"It's blood," he confirmed needlessly, putting voice to what Rex and Raine probably already knew. "The smell gives it away. It's damp down here, that's why it hasn't fully dried."

He moved towards one of the other cells to examine it and the cacophonous chatter of his ghosts grew more insistent. They didn't speak in words so much, even to him, so he scanned the prison ward for what might be upsetting them. Like Rex, he thought he saw something from the corner of his eyes. Unlike Rex however, Bakura had dealt with ghosts and spirits and apparitions for nearly all of his exceedingly long existence and realized, even without being able to pinpoint anything visually, what was going on.

"Just as a point of interest, we're not the only ones down here."

[ruinsprofessor]

She'd really been hoping to be wrong in this instance. Blood didn't speak well to what had been being done down here.

Bakura's statement that they weren't alone set her on edge, but no sense of gathering mana and no immediate sound of footsteps or shifting metal stopped her from immediately starting to cast. "...All right, what do you see here that we don't?" Raine asked instead, wary, and moved out of the cell she was in. If he knew things about the area despite never having visited, and there was no real reason for him to lie about that, and if he was also suggesting company that was currently imperceptible, it seemed likely he had more senses available than the average human.

She halted in what passed for a central area, her staff half-raised, and glanced around again, just in case.

[deusrexmachina]

Hearing Bakura's warning, Rex followed Raine out, though he stayed closer to the cell they'd just exited. That none of them could read the graffiti was a problem, especially since it was written in blood, a detail that made knowing the meaning that much more important. He had a possible solution to that issue, but before that could be further dealt with, it might be wise to figure out just what Bakura meant.

Standing by the door, Rex tilted his head, listening carefully. He couldn't pick up anything aside from the sounds his companions made as they moved about, however. His infrared hadn't picked up on anything earlier, either, so what was the deal?

"I thought I saw something out of the corner of one eye a minute or two ago, but it was probably just a trick of the light," Rex said with a shrug as he glanced in Bakura's general direction. "Sure that wasn't the case with you?"

[denyamenti]

"Very sure," Bakura said dryly. He hesitated only a brief moment, head turning slightly to one side as though to either listen or check something and then he summoned another card: "Activate Spell... Dark-Piercing Light."

A brilliant flash illuminated the dark prison, and in the afterimage that scalded their sights there were outlines of people crowded in the cells, chained to the walls, pressed against the doorways as though the bars still blocked their path. Many moved as though they were struggling against figures that could not be seen or distinguished. However this particular Spell revealed all 'face down' or otherwise hidden things, so Rex and Raine would also be able to see the dozens and dozens of skull-like apparitions that clustered around Bakura, though some had broken off to drift through the enclosed prison space.

The light and its afterimages faded, leaving the prison dark and seemingly empty again except for the three of them.

[ruinsprofessor]

Raine's breath caught at the sudden illumination of the ghosts in the prison, and her gaze flickered rapidly around the prison, taking in everything thus revealed.

The ghosts around Bakura seemed different from the rest. She took a mental note of the anomaly, but didn't press the idea. Time enough for that when they were not in hostile territory. Instead, when the ghosts faded, Raine moved to one of the far corners and bent over, briefly calling light to her fingertips. When she straightened she had a dagger in her hands, and was turning it end over end, studying it. "Do either of you recognize this? It's more than a simple weapon; the mana around it is a little different."

In the flash, if Bakura and Rex glanced over at her instead of the multitude of other spectres, they might have caught a glow at the base of her neck, anchoring the faintest ghost of another person's silhouette. It was much dimmer than the rest, almost nonexistent.