EVENT | INTERMEZZO | Palace Exploration Log

[ironwood]

Characters: ALL!
Date: Sept 28 and onward
Location: Palace of the Landed Sky, Keeliai
Situation: In the wake of Malicant's bold taunt, and the death of the Emperor and five hatchlings, the Palace is left abandoned and open for the Foreigners and kedan alike to explore.
Warnings/Rating: CONTENT WARNINGS are noted in the various subject headers, please take note of them!

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zwischenzug | (ˈzvɪʃənzuːɡ) | intermezzo | n. (in chess):
1. A tactical move interpolated into an exchange or series of exchanges to improve the outcome.
2. "in-between move". An unexpected move tossed into an expected series of moves. (German)
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Where once the Palace of the Landed Sky was a majestic and beautiful thing to behold, it now seems to pulse with negative energy. The outer walls are crumbling in most places, unsteady and fallen into disrepair. The walls of the Palace itself remain for the most part sturdy, minus a few fallen stones and the ruins beside the Courtyard.

The Palace is empty. Though some bodies can be found scattered haphazardly about the halls, most of those who were working in the building have disappeared entirely. There’s no question as to whose doing it was.

Small groups of kedan have also ventured into the Palace in order to loot whatever rooms they can get into, feeling confident that the reward will outweigh the risk of facing off against Foreigners who may feel the need to repel them. Mostly they'll be in groups of 3-5, though individuals or larger can be encountered as well. Some will engage the Foreigners in hostilities and some will grudgingly be sent on their way without challenge, depending on how bold they feel.

No banners, rugs, lanterns, or furniture within the Palace remain in pristine condition (with the exception of Eshai’s room). Everywhere one looks, items are torn, scratched, or smeared with blood. Even the interior walls are often cracked or caked in what one hopes is only blood. Perhaps more unnerving are the ‘veins’ that run through the walls, floor, and ceiling. These thin black tendrils, equal parts within and without the surface they spread across, are textured and feel like pine needles to the touch. These veins run throughout the Palace, yet never seem to thicken, intensify, or coalesce in any one room or area.

Though the walls are still made of white marble and the floor remains interlaced with rose quartz and mother-of-pearl, the shine has gone from them and something of the life and light they brought has withered away. Though the structure remains intact, it feels in some areas as if the walls have closed in, making the previously grand rooms now seem shrunken and constrictive. An air of eerie calm and discomfort can be felt from the first step on. The building is not the Palace anyone remembers.

---

LINKS
Throne Room | Eshai's Room | Storage Armory | Library
Ritual Chamber | Prison | Courtyard | The Turtle's Head

OOC NOTE
The Palace becomes available to explore as of the 28th, but will remain accessible until further notice. Please direct any questions regarding this log to the QUESTIONS section in the original OOC post.

There will also be a State of the Shell post coming soon to address the current status of the city and its key players. Thank you!

Comments

[royalguard_style]

Despite not speaking much to Anton, Dante didn't really think much of the incident, if only because murder attempts by close friends have become something of a regular occurrence in his life. At the very least, Anton had a legitimate reason for doing it, unlike the lot he hung out with back home. If anything, he had so much he wanted to ask. He just needed a good time to slip "what the hell was that thing you turned into" into a conversation. Sadly, these last few weeks have been far busier than he's used to dealing with.

"So from what I'm getting, this is just another reason to kill this son of a bitch." Of course, he went straight for the simple and brutish answer, but after what the enemy did, he can't help but have a one-track mind. "So I guess the question now is, why bother? All something like this would do is piss people off. I mean sure, 'ol Mal is a sick bastard, but keeping the dead around like this? Seems like a bit much for another one of his little taunts."

[redlightgreenlight]

Now that there was more light, Valdis' eyes wandered, settling on the writing scrawled in blood, the bodies that lay within the cells. "No." She replied. She broke the lock on one of the cells and walked in to examine the writing more closely.

"The souls are blurred, as if they are only partially present. I know little about Necromancy, especially what it might be like in your world, but I believe these souls are held here for some other reason."

She stopped to consider Dante's words, "It's not a taunt either, more like a consequence of whatever they were killed for."

She turned away from the bloody writing and knelt by the body in the cell. The kedan's corpse was emaciated, but decomposed enough that she couldn't tell if there were any wounds that caused its death. Though her attention remained on the kedan, she gestured to the writing, "Can either of you read that?"

[gistful]

The fact that Dante barely batted an eyelash at Anton's presence helped soothe some of the tension Anton had only been vaguely aware he had. "If he can be killed," Anton pointed out, holding his torch aloft so it lit more of the area. "Stopped, perhaps, but killed?"

He moved further along so the light shone into the cell Valdis had entered, and looked at the writing, and shook his head. "I have not yet had the opportunity to learn kedanese."

But he looked closely at it, until he felt sure he'd remember the words later. "Souls contain power," he said, as an aside, a continuation of the previous topic. "It could simply be that containing them here was intended to help boost the power of those present here. It could also be that their presence is a side-effect of the taint in some fashion."

[royalguard_style]

"Guess we'll just have to find out now, won't we?" It was pretty easy to hide the flash of worry and grief that briefly shot across his face, thanks to the dim lights. He didn't want to even imagine that this thing could turn out to be another Mundus. "The last thing this universe needs is another unkillable creature hell-bent on killing everyone. Especially since we might not always be there to put it away again."

"Should be pretty easy to find someone who can." Dante starts copying the symbols onto a pad of paper to the best of his ability, squatting down in front of the writing to work in the poor light.

"So these souls aren't all here?" The idea that souls have power definitely holds credence to Dante. Half of his weaponry works because of exactly this, and he's had a fair share of demons try to kill him for his soul. "If they're only partially here, then maybe our little houseguest took what he needed then left the rest here. I guess the only way to find out is to see if there's a something that's being powered somewhere around here."

[redlightgreenlight]

Valdis was only half listening to the other two as they conversed. The lingering sense of death and agony in the room had begun to affect her. The red slowly seeped into her eyes, the darkness feeding off the negative auras, but she maintained control.

"If that is true, then we need to be careful, but if he was using them to power something then we wouldn't be seeing them as individuals, but as a mass." She stood and walked back over to the wall, as if to look at the writing again.

"There are enough souls wandering this place to greatly increase my strength." She whispered to Anton, her eyes still bright red, "We already know that he is strong enough to mess with our abilities. If he uses souls the same way I do, then he may be too powerful for us to defeat."

[gistful]

"Evil is a never-ending force to be always fought," said Anton. "If we are not present, others will be. Someone will always fight the darkness, and rage against the dying of the light." He said it with simple reassurance, because as far as he was concerned it was true. It was one of the reasons he wasn't worried about dying himself, and leaving tasks undone. Someone would be there to pick up what he had left.

When Valdis came to his side he glanced at her, noted her eyes, and the responding warm twist in his chest was almost soothing in comparison to the days when he hadn't been able to feel it at all. "No one is too powerful," he said, but quietly. "Even if they fall beneath their own weight. Belief in power grants it more. Don't give him the benefit of that fear, Lady Valdis. It will only shackle you."

[royalguard_style]

"I'm just saying that the fewer problems they have to deal with, the better. Can't have evil itself running around with a bone to pick, can we?" As the one who was once left to clean up oh-so-many messes, Dante didn't like the idea of just saying it was the next bunch's problem. Yes, someone will rise to the occasion, but that may be after they were put through hell. Better to just fill the problem full of lead and hope that does the trick.

"Well, I guess there's one way to find out. Think busting them out of this hellhole would help us any?" Which is his way of saying he stopped knowing what he was talking about roughly five minutes ago. He hastily finishes transcribing the writings.

[redlightgreenlight]

"I'm not afraid," She replied quietly, "More confused at the moment."

Dante's voice drew her mind away from the problem of the enemy and back onto that of the souls. "Blowing a hole in the place will just cause a mess," she said, shocked by his lack of understanding. Though really, she mused, his lack of understanding shouldn't have been a surprise. "The souls are being held here, we can't break them free."

[gistful]

"If we had a Sensitive it might be possible to move them, or at least exorcise them," Anton added, glancing around as though he could see the ghosts from anywhere other than the corners of his eyes. "Or at least communicate with them. I do not believe we do, however."

Necromancers didn't have much dealings with ghosts--they needed something physical to use their magic on. Otherwise he might have suggested Wreath. As it was ... "Perhaps if it was consecrated, but I doubt that would be possible until after our enemy is defeated."

Anton glanced around once more. The prison was making him feel unsettled, but so too was something else--if Valdis was here, then where was Skulduggery? "Lady Valdis, where is Skulduggery?"

[redlightgreenlight]

Valdis had no idea what a Sensitive was, but she agreed that there was nothing that they could do until after the enemy was gone.

"He's upstairs in the throne room," she said, feeling a little ashamed that she had left the Skeleton alone after promising Anton that she would stay with him. "He was examining the throne and promised to wait."

[gistful]

"Then I had better join him," Anton said, "before his shallow reserves of patience deplete. Thank you for watching him for me, Lady Valdis. Dante--your lantern appears to be running out." He handed his sigil-lit torch to Dante and bowed to them both, and then retraced Valdis's footsteps. Skulduggery would be anxious to move on by now, and at least Anton could give him the satisfaction of some information in return for waiting.

[highprofilerichkid]

After a brief discussion with Skulduggery in the throne room, Gene and Tony had followed Valdis down into the prison.

The stairs were dark, and Tony, with his suit's power core lighting the way, took the lead. And yet despite the arc light, the shadows seemed to... cling. They seemed thicker, deeper, more persistent than they should be. Tony turned up the brightness of the beam a little, and the effect lessened, and he wondered if he hadn't just been imagining it. He shook his head. They'd only been in the Palace five minutes, and the place was already creeping him out.

They passed a man going in the opposite direction, which gave Tony a bit of a start, but he didn't stop to chat and obviously wasn't Valdis (by virtue of being a dude), so Tony shrugged and kept descending.

The sound of voices became audible as Gene and Tony reached the bottom of the stairs. Apparently the man they'd passed on the stairs wasn't their only unexpected company.

When they entered the room, they found two more people already there, neither of whom Tony recognized - though presumably, the woman was Valdis.

Tony had a hard time focusing on them, though. He was too unsettled by the prison itself. The blood and grime and creeping black tendrils, the scrawled graffiti, the bodies... He immediately regretted turning his arc light up so high. The shadows, creepy as they were, at least would have hidden some of... this.

He was glad that the armor hid his face as he took a few moments to pull himself together.

"What is all this?" he asked the pair, homing in on the graffiti in the cells. It was easier to focus on that than on the decomposing corpses, and he was too disquieted to bother with introductions.