tushanshu_logs | [EVENT|4TH WALL] MYSTERIOUS INTERLOPERS - THE DREAMING DISCONNECTS

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[EVENT|4TH WALL] MYSTERIOUS INTERLOPERS - THE DREAMING DISCONNECTS | APRIL 22-30

Characters: ALL and plus ones.
Date: April 23-30 2015 (2016 in-game)
Location: In the city of Keeliai
Situation: Infiltration - fourth wall event, week two!
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.

The festival initially ends on a vindicated note. The kedan at large are happy, chatting, even being unnecessarily gracious toward the Foreigners -- those they can tell are Foreigners, at least. Even the Woodsmen are pleased, on the whole, though it may occasionally be difficult to tell. It's also the Woodsmen who first get the news, trickled down from Heojin.

By the end of the first day, the rest of the festival-goers will have heard enough from the Woodsmen to be going on: that Lin, Heojin's bodyguard, ran across someone making trouble in a field on the day he was apparently absent. The exact details of what happened are blurred; some say he was kidnapped, some say he fled into the mountains to draw the interlopers off, some say he was just in hiding, watching their movements.

Regardless, it causes curious kedan to go investigate the fields themselves on their way back to the city -- never by encroaching on the Woodsmen's land, thanks to the strings of Woodsmen guarding the fence-lines, but enough to see the evidence for themselves.

Whatever the truth of the rumours, by then it becomes clear: there was more than one group of infiltrators in the festival.

The raiders are back. They've come for their own.

LINKS
Festival Grounds & Crop Circles | City Tensions | Outside Yunxu's Mansion | Palace Lands | Water Sector Memorial | OOC Post - Event Week #1 | OOC Post - Event Week #2 | 4th Wall Character Check In

OOC
Some starters have been provided in the comments below to cover the main areas of the event! Anything that doesn't fit into these can be added to the bottom of the post. Please direct any questions to the OOC post, thank you!

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The Ni Zhihuan festival continues on gamely, despite the risen tensions due to Tu Yunxu's announcement about the captured Chihuelans. In fact, it looks as though the arrests will be nothing more than a one-off occurrence, until the first discovery in the field is made. Those who are familiar with crop circles in their own worlds will find it hard not to liken these designs in the fields to them. Even more strange is the manner in which they appear to be made -- or rather, the lack of manner. There are no tools marks and no evidence of it having been done by hand. Instead, the ground is disturbed in a way that suggests there was either something large and heavy resting there, or that the ground itself was pulled under immense pressure down upon itself.

And someone probably would have noticed something large and heavy just sitting in the field for a length of time.

It doesn't take long to identify the symbols made evident in these shapes: there were two main symbols used by the Chihuelans during the invasion: one, which looks like a lightning bolt curved into a spiral, and the other is a square made of four stiletto-like knives. Kedan who are willing to talk about the invasion -- and there are actually only a few who seem willing to go into detail, as though the memory of it was collectively made taboo -- will remark that both symbols were used during the weeks of incursion by the raiders.

The meanings of these two symbols aren't clearly known by the kedan -- although it was speculated that they were either some kind of platoon insignia, or else some kind of gruesome graffiti, considering they were often found next to murdered kedan. If asked, there still a few painted around the city that can be pointed out, although efforts have clearly been to remove them or cover them up, as if no one wants the reminder… and really, who can blame the kedan for that?

It doesn't even take a few hours between the finding of the first field symbol for news of it to spread throughout the city, and before long, it's the only topic of note on every doorstep and public space in the city. Tempers are short, and with the announcement of there being some sort of new shapeshifting ability going around, the kedan are afraid of having their only defense taken away.

Suddenly everyone is suspect. Those who've developed any new habits, those who've recently moved, or changed a job, or even started styling their facial features differently. Neighbours who have lived near each other for years are suddenly mistrustful, and accusations start to fly, no matter how baseless. Most of these are quickly tempered, whether by the stern presence of the Snakes or by the perpetrators themselves realizing that this isn't a time to be divided, because that is what the Chihuelans would want.

But not every clash is ruled by a level head, and there are a few street brawls over the next couple of days, where what starts as fisticuffs between a few hotheads dominoes into dozens, all certain that they're in the clear, and everyone else is a potential threat. Thankfully, none of these clashes result in fatalities, although clinics all over the city -- both the legal, like the Hospital and Healer's Guild, and illegal, like the black market doctors -- will see a sharp uptick in broken bones, non-life threatening wounds, and general concussions all around.

Foreigners are not exempt from these suspicions, especially the new arrivals, although producing a soul gem seems to (for the most part) placate them. Foreigners who are familiar around the city can also vouch for the new arrivals, giving them added protection.

The protest outside Tu Yunxu's mansion can hardly be called organized by any stretch, but it's not without its strength. There's a healthy mix of people attending, but a good many of them are older, and from their constant calls for justice against the Chihuelans, it isn't hard to figure out that many of these kedan are those who lost sons and daughters in the invasion.

Their claims are reasonable, they'll argue. There's no way that these two Chihuelans weren't part of the invading force under Celaunn's command, because how else could there be Chihuelans on Tu Vishan? The name of the former Basswood Commander is spoken with the deepest loathing, and many feel they were betrayed by the woman not once, but twice.

In fact, any who might speak in defense of the two Chihuelan men are very likely to end up on the cold, stony glare of the protesters. The immediate vicinity of the Snakes' headquarters keeps any potential violence in check, but be assured that names and descriptions of any who don't seem to be siding with the kedan will be passed along.

The lands once occupied by the former Palace of the Landed Sky seem to be one of the few places in the city where the changing tide of the city isn't taking over, and work continues at its pace. If this keeps up, the majority of the housing will be build by this time next month, and the quarried out marble and other stone from the Palace's enormous walls is making appearances in all types of the construction -- large amounts of stone are difficult to quarry in from the mountains, and the kedan are not wasteful.

In addition to the major construction, many of these small properties -- for none of them are built extravagantly -- need small touches as well, and the workers seem willing to let just about anyone pitch in to help with that. Basic furniture needs to be constructed, the necessities of a house need to be gathered and put into baskets, allotted to each property. There's certainly enough to do, if anyone feels the need to take their minds of the swirling storm of suspicion elsewhere in Keeliai.

The Water Sector has perhaps the quietest atmosphere in the city, and at its heart near one of the largest fountains, many kedan gather to lay offerings to those who were killed during the Chihuelan invasion. For those who haven't heard the tale, they will relate that approximately six months after all the Foreigners disappeared from Tu Vishan -- trapped unwillingly in the Dreaming, although they didn't know that at the time -- a well-armed military force arrived from Atamsichar, the capital of Chihuelo empire. Although they were only numbered about 300, the kedan were caught by surprise, and shocked to see that the force was led by the Basswood Commander, Celaunn. The woman was Chihuelan herself, but she had been Evandau's personal choice to replace him when he was forced to take over as Emperor-- and because of that, she knew as much about the city, about its weaknesses and pitfalls, as Evandau himself had.

They had moved throughout the city as if searching for something, although no one has ever been able to figure out what. Wherever they went, they left almost no survivors -- certainly none on purpose. Sometimes they painted symbols on the walls where they'd been, and those symbols are the ones having appeared in the crop circles in the field. The only marshal force in the city, the police, had been completely lost without their Commander and without orders, and most of them had died in vain attempts to stop the raiders.

All told, over 2000 kedan lost their lives before the general populace got themselves together well enough to provide resistance, and the raiders were eventually routed. The Water Sector had taken the brunt of that fatality toll, as as disproportionate number of Chihuelans remained there, seeking whatever it was they've been seeking. Almost a third of the dead were from this district.

The mourners, however, aren't mourning. Angry, and bitter, and even sad, but the normally lackadaisical people here were galvanized as the rest of the city's population.

All throughout the Sector, tiny paper boats ride the canals with candles perched in them, and long streamer tails of coloured ribbons float behind them. The tides will find them, is the most frequent blessing uttered, and it's never quite clear if the kedan mean the deceased, or those responsible for them… in which case, it's probably less of a blessing, and more of a curse.

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