The Seeds of Unrest: the Iconoclast Oracle

[beleos]

RUNNING OUT THE CLOCK

The situation is bleak.

The Blight - and the massive labyrinth of roots tearing both cities asunder, spreading deadly flowers wherever they penetrate - have progressed to a point beyond catastrophe. People are dying in rapid numbers. Bearers are having difficulty keeping up with the spread of infection - even among one another. The collapse of Kenos seems inevitable; a cure will not come in time. You can do nothing but watch as each new day brings further disaster, ticking down the seconds until it all falls apart.

And then, you feel something seize your Shard. As if physical fingers have wrapped around it, as if it is being clutched through you by invisible hands, you feel invaded. You feel wronged. But before you can panic, a voice enters your mind through Communion.

“Excuse the dramatics, but there isn’t much time for pleasantries. The Trees are about to hit the point of no return. But there's still work to be done. The Tree of Life will take you where you can find it: the Oracle and the creature causing all this mess. Fix this when you find them. However you'd like.”

Have you heard Aetos’ voice before? Perhaps it is the first time; perhaps it is familiar to you. Either way, the last thing you will remember is a confusing jumble: a spell of immense and incredible power, one utilizing the Tree’s strength to shelter you. The sensation of every cell in your body coming alive, yet seeming to break apart and render you into billions and billions of tiny pieces, all hovering in different times and places across all the different iterations, timelines, and realities in which you have ever existed. A voice that speaks not through words asking your forgiveness, unspeakably sad.

And then, there is nothing.

AWAKENING

Your eyes open, gritty with the feeling of a long, deep slumber.

Perhaps it takes a moment to shake off the heavy veil of exhaustion, to recollect what you were doing before you fell into this state of hibernation - but as soon as you do, you feel an immediate sense of foreboding around you. It is thick in the air, oppressive and pervasive, and you aren’t left long to wonder at its source. You lay beneath the branches of the Tree of Life, but as your bleary eyes focus… you see it. The Tree is all but bereft of life. Its bark has withered down to gnarled wood, the soft lichen dried up, and the grass that should be alive beneath you is long dead and gone. There is not so much as a single leaf on its decaying branches.

It has been this way for a long, long time... you realize this with a feeling of intense dread as you see it - the beautiful expanse of stars, of the cosmos, of universes scattered like starlight above the tree's boughs, gone. In its place hangs a sickly, ominously low-hanging, and dying sun ready to sing the end of everything.

You can't help but wonder how long Kenos has been in this state, but a sense of gratitude fills you as you realize that the Tree expended the last of its energies to protect you, the Bearers, during your state of rest. Had Aetos worked with the tree to see you sent here?

The next question comes quickly: how much time do you have left…? And can you find the Oracle before that time expires?

ABANDON HOPE (DAYS 1 & 2)

The cornerstones are still active and will take you to whichever city you wish to see.

Highstorm and Springstar sit like empty monuments to the cities that were once filled with life - yet the first thing you will notice is they are strangely absent the signs of the Tree’s overgrown roots, the Blight, the catastrophic damage that you can recall all too easily. Instead, each city sits as those they were summarily abandoned overnight, leaving nothing but their shells behind. There is a stillness in the air that is unnatural and unsettling. Despite the lack of any sign of the citizens of either city, you cannot help but feel… watched.

Something terrible happened here. Best you find the Oracle before something terrible finds you, instead.

The burning of a dying sun beats down on you wherever you go, unbearable heat sending waves off the aged cobblestone streets. Perhaps it is your instinct to seek refuge in the shade - but linger too long about the shadows and that feeling of eyes on your back, of being unable to breathe, of your world closing in around you will grow untenable and drive you back into the light. If you hope to explore the ghostly shell of your city in search of the Oracle - or to sate your curiosity, some problem-solving might be in order.

And while you acclimate yourself to your circumstances, you cannot help but note you feel wrong inside, somehow…

EXPLORATION

• If your characters choose to explore previously unreachable areas, please use THIS TOPLEVEL to report when they get there in the thread! We will get back to you with what is discoverable in that location.
• The following areas are off limits for exploration: below Yima’s Manor; below the Church of Heliopolis; Alenroux; Kowloon.
• The Great Trees of both Highstorm and Springstar are in a similar state to the Tree of Life and will not respond to Communion.
• Generally speaking, items will be of poor quality. Most will look as though they’ve aged thousands of years. Others will be in half-decent shape, but sparingly so. Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem like the whole city has aged at the same rate, so especially diligent rummagers can find worthwhile supplies. Please consider this should be rare and don’t go overboard!

NOTES

Here are some prompt reminders - see the full thing at the OOC Summary!

• Characters will have a diluted connection to the Zenith or Meridian.
• There will be periods powers are weakened or non-functional during days 1-2 (up to player discretion).
• The sunlight results in scorching; the shadows cause claustrophobia and fear while outdoors.

THE RITUAL (DAYS 2+)

The place you started your journey to Kenos is also where it seems it will end. As soon as the first Bearer makes contact with the Iconoclast effigy, you are collectively drawn to the roots beneath the Tree - like a pang sent through your Shard. Your objective has been found. The Oracle awaits.

Trusting Aetos seems like a fool's errand, but you must put your hope in the Tree. What choice do you have left? It's time to find what lies at the end of this.

Bearers descend, your steps echoing in the dark, cavernous space. Once brimming with life and vitality, the roots are now dried and brittle like the bones of some ancient leviathan that died long ago. As you make their way deeper into the earth, the deadened roots twist, leading you to a vast chamber deep within it; the air here is thick with the smell of decay, and the faint glow of luminescent fungi and mosses barely illuminates the space.

To your left, the Bearers will notice what has drawn them here - and the object of their search.

An effigy sits on the ground between two darkened tunnels. The effigy is made of gnarled, dead branches woven together in a humanoid shape; its hollow, empty eyes are sightless, yet you cannot help but feel it is watching your every move. Branded on its forehead is the Iconoclast symbol carved into the rough wood.

Once all Bearers are present, the Ritual will begin. Your means of exit have been sealed off, and you are trapped, slowly deteriorating together…

NOTES

• Bearers will have access to the Ritual Chamber which is a very wide, open space with the effigy situated against the far wall from the entrance. Several smaller tunnels off-shoot from the Ritual Chamber. They all run to dead ends; some are very small or narrow. This may afford you meager privacy away from the group.
• Once a Bearer steps into the Chamber, they can no longer head back out the way they came. They’ll find themselves automatically walking back into the Chamber as if of their own volition.
• For brevity’s sake we won’t list them out again here, but the complete description of effects Bearers will experience days 2+ is available in the OOC Summary.
• The effigy is impervious to damage.
• It Is Watching You.
• In a dead-end root tunnel attached to the Iconoclast’s Chamber is the Blighted statue of an Otter that may be familiar to some… Please see THIS TOPLEVEL for more information!

THE PURGE (DAYS 5+)

The sap has festered in your veins for what feels like days. It’s impossible to tell how much time has passed; this place has no sunlight. The effigy watches as you remain trapped, huddled together around it, unable to leave as you find yourself sick with the affliction of the Meridian, Zenith - or both.

And then… something finally gives.

Though it does not move and speaks no words, you feel the effigy offering you guidance. Knowledge. Much like the Tree speaks to you in impressions and feelings, you are conveyed wisdom you did not have before: a way to take what you want and rid yourself of what you do not. A way to make your convictions known to all who would hear them. A way to be known. To write your path in blood, be it yours… or theirs.

When all is said and done, only one force - Zenith or Meridian - will gain its favor.

Show it who you are. Show it what resolve looks like to you - and what you are willing to do to attain it.

NOTES

Here are some prompt reminders - see the full thing at the OOC Summary!

• You can Purge your alignment through various methods: Trading, Corrupting, or using the Effigy itself.
• All characters will understand the end goal is for everyone to Harmonize; the alignment with the higher rate of Harmonized Bearers alive when time’s up wins the Oracle’s favor.

NOTES

• A reminder that the Harmonization tally will take place on Friday, the 19th and be open through Monday, the 29th. The results will be released on Wednesday, the 31st OOCly.
• Don’t forget to submit any deaths to the Death Tracker, with a gentle reminder characters will remain dead until the event conclusion!
• Reminder to fill out the SETTING POLL ASAP if you haven't already!
• Have some MUSIC if you'd like. LYRICS here!
• HAVE FUN!!

CODING

Comments

[zauneyete]

[ He is not ignorant to her meaning. He does not think it's intended to mollify him -- and it does not, but instead he is --

Somewhere beyond angry. It burns in his gaze, in that ever-open eye, like a torrent that is barely held back. His expression twitches with it, his eyes dance, somewhere away from her face, and then back, his lips twitch, and his jaw grinds. She says all these words, these nice, kind words, about loving imperfect worlds, and imperfect things as if there is love in the world at all -- as if they are deserving of it. As if there is a place for them all.

But Silco knows that is a lie. He knows, because he was the thing that was tossed aside, festered and imperfect -- more than any of them -- and because he was inconvenient, a dirty little thing that could simply be thrown away and ignored when that didn't work -- her words ring hollow, because Silco is an angry, abandoned man, and there is no room for anyone or anything like this. Silco wants justice, he wants vengeance, and he wants a world that realizes that the things that were ugly, ignored, and monstrous were just as valid to exist -- could destroy with abandon, railing against the institutions.

She talked of love like it was so simple. Like it was easy, and it could cure all things. As if loving her world would be enough to bring it back, and perhaps as a God she would have that opportunity, but -- ]

I think you want to hope such emotions solve everything.

[ He says, his tone is ice, like being doused in that same water, even as his expression burns. He knows better than to let it show in his tone, to allow an outburst. He ran a hand through his hair, and his fingers shook from rage, but the ritual is enough to still them. ]

They are little comfort. This "love" you promise is empty. It does not soothe wounds, it does not make your world better. It is the veneer people place over their rotten wounds and scars. It is what we use to pretend that everything is fine, and that things are good enough.

[ he leaned forward, not quite into her space, but close enough that there is the impression of looming, even given how much smaller he is than her. ]

I will not settle for that.

Your world is gone. My world is gone. They are destroyed. I have witnessed this twice, and I have seen the heart of nothingness, seen the silence of oblivion. Where would your promises of love be then? They will be as gone as the rest of it. Holding onto it when it is sand through your fingers, watching it trickle away?

What good is that, then?

[muchalucha]

[ His anger may not come through Communion fully, but hers does. It’s not anything dangerous, but as Silco has surely already figured out through their two conversations with Communion, she’s not adept at all at hiding her emotions. She wears her heart easily and openly. It’s why she had easily proclaimed she didn’t have secrets—she knew well that she was no good at hiding them.

So, it’s not his rejection itself that bothers her. Not at all, in fact, because she’d already spoken with Cassian and heard his reasons and how he couldn’t fully accept the kind of hope that she wanted to give him. No, she’s more upset because Silco is just being stubborn, and that’s all she sees. ]

It’s not just emotions. I’m not giving my love like it’s some kind of asombrosa force that’ll make everything better. Obviously it won’t! I’ve loved every world I made, and it didn’t save them.

[ She may not hold secrets, but that’s her tender spot. She can only look at the previous worlds that she had worked hard for, cultivated, and then had to send them into oblivion usually by her own hands as incredibly tragic failures. They were failures on a level that even other divinities couldn’t fully comprehend because her pantheon was unique in its ability to create and erase a “world”. And then for her Fifth and the final to meet the fate it had… Not at anything to do with Kenos, but at Cortés’s— ]

If love was what you said it is, you wouldn’t care about Zaun at all. You wouldn’t have even told me about it, because it would be all in the past. You would have never fought to make things better if you didn’t love it with all your heart, because it’s easier to just let things be.

[ Silco has leaned in, so she leans forward to match it. He’s ice (water—), and she’s passionate fire that’s not cowed at all by how even his small frame can be intimidating. She’s ripped greater monsters than him in half to create the earth and the sky. She has no intentions of hurting him now, of course, but her will is just as strong as his. Unbeknownst to her, Set’s assessment had been exactly correct. ]

And you know what, señor Silco? I don’t even think you’re working with Zenith out of the kindness of your heart. You don’t give me the impression of someone that really cares about some new world, of being a god, or whatever. I think there is someone that you care about, and they’re exactly what Yima gave you to make sure you would be a good boy and do what she wanted. I don’t think you’d throw away all of your hard work just to make something new. But I think you’d throw it away to save someone that you loved.

[ She nods over her shoulder, in the direction that Silco had just been looking. Quetzalcoatl may not be the most book-smart god, but she was a god of wisdom. Her wisdom just presented itself in her attention and her emotional intelligence, which is perhaps the worst thing for Silco. ]

They’re who you’ve been seeing, yes? Just like I’ve been seeing and hearing Tezcatlipoca.

[zauneyete]

[ He both hears, and does not hear her words, because his heart kicks up so fast and hard that he can barely hear anything, his ears practically ringing from the rush of it as she tries to point out things that Silco most certainly does know, but does not speak to. There are only two people in all of Kenos who have been privy to the knowledge that Silco holds incredibly close -- as Set has not learned this yet -- and he knows Sebastian cannot and he has not even seen Kaeya around.

How did she know?

His eyes dance from her, to the side, as if he's looking back behind him. The shadow of his daughter looms over him, but every time he turns --

He does not see her. Like she's dancing just out of sight, and Silco hates to know that even someone else gets the honor of seeing someone important to them, even if its a mockery of their own goals. Like she's just out of reach, and Silco has so little he values, not like he values Jinx. Even Zaun, for all of his endless hard work and devotion, was nothing when stood next to his daughter, and it makes him angrier that not only does she point out that she exists -- even if she doesn't know who she is -- but that she has someone else that she can see.

'Maybe it's because you're turning your back on me' is what the small voice said behind him, even though his daughter was dying in his arms, and he had no choice. Singed? There was a chance -- it had been the last thought in his head, and he'd been planning to take her -- but that was a long shot, and instead he had a chance of something better, and unleashing his daughter on that "perfect" world, where she can thrive and destroy, and treat it like a playground, instead of... possibly dying.

It's not turning his back on her -- and the thought spurs him to surge forward, angry that Quetz even dared to bring her up, that she dared think about that thing he held so close. She wasn't even here now, he kept her locked away in his quarters, and her shard hadn't been there. But she's mocking him from behind, and this -- person, this supposed "god" that mocked him by talking about love and things being 'worthy' already made Silco angry -- incandescent. Nobody said things like that to him, there was no "worth of love" in Zaun. It was gain power, or die. Struggle, and seize what power one could get -- or one ended up drowned, choked out in the river, merely an afterthought to history.

Silco was angry that she tried to hint at something deeper than that, that she wanted him to know that she knew there was someone important there. She was mocking him with that knowledge, pretending like she cared, when all she wanted was to rub it in, that there was someone -- something to which he valued. Actually valued.

He wanted to tell her that it was nothing -- he'd technically seen nobody -- but instead, his motion forward carried through, and he reached out, his hands trembling, not to grab her, but his hands reach for her throat, as if he could silence her, by doing so. ]

You --

Know nothing --

[ He hissed, trying to shut her up. ]

1/2

[muchalucha]

[ What floods through Communion is discordant and frenzied, and she knows that she’s struck a nerve. It’s more of one than she really intended, but just how sensitive Silco was about this subject would be a surprise to nearly anyone.

His hands still find their mark on her neck. She lets him. There’s so much anger, so much hate, and it’s twisted and polluted him in a way unlike any she’s ever personally seen before. His hands tighten around her throat, and she chokes out a noise reflexively as her hands come up.

However, only one reaches up to grip a wrist. With her other hand, she reaches out to Silco’s face to gently touch at the marred side, his tlatlacolli made manifest. It’s never been her role as a god, but still, she wishes she could reduce this pain for him like Tlazoltéotl did as a sin eater. Silco called love empty, but so is this hate. It’ll only ever twist and ruin him further, but he’s stubbornly determined to cling to it. Maybe he feels that’s all he has.

If this weren’t a fight for an Oracle and if she thought it might soothe his anger, she might have let him continue. It fits with her view of her role as a god, of sacrifice and how it can be offered, but it would be wasted. There’s little worse than a pointless sacrifice.

It's just a momentary consideration with the soft touch of her hand, but her voice comes to him (and everyone else, technically) in Communion. ]

I’m not going to kill you. But this will hurt.

[muchalucha]

[ Her hand on his face comes down quickly as her grip on his wrist moves up to his forearm because she’ll need the leverage. She grabs at the top of his arm and then twists inward. It’s not easy with the fatigue of the sap and with Silco fighting her, but Silco is no Shimmered, and Quetzalcoatl was a force to be reckoned with even without her divinity at all. It only takes just enough precisely applied force, but with a bit of a wet crack, she forces the joint of his arm out of his shoulder.

Just by how he had acted when he killed her, he’s certain that this will be enough to force him to let go completely and likely withdraw. He’s not unused to fights, but he’s used to other people doing his dirty work for him. It’s why her gaze does flicker to the other god and the demon as she draws back as if to tell them through her look alone that she’s not looking for a fight with them. Set she trusts, but Sebastian, well… She just hopes that Silco will feel the pressure to withdraw and lick his wounds, so to speak.

This is her mercy, since it’s a wound that won’t kill him down here. She could likely kill him herself if she wanted and even tip the scales of the Oracle in their favor, but… There’s a point she’s determined to make with Silco now. Killing him would ruin the chance of it without repair. ]

[zauneyete]

[ There's so much to recoil from that Silco is just as taken aback as Quetz is. His hands don't loosen at first, but he's already trying to pull his head back and away from her hand, trying to touch him, and that ugly, smeared scar on his face -- the one that's half-covered with leftover makeup and streaked and messy, and the ugliness underneath is stark. Silco's clearly covered it up, Quetz probably could have seen it during their fight too, how he carefully keeps it in check, and how nobody really sees how deep the rot goes -- until moments like this, underneath the tree, where people can see after a while, how he's covered it up.

Quetz tries to touch that, and she tries to commune with him, and it's revulsion/anger/disgust/hate all in one discordant pop of emotion. He wouldn't be able to stop it, even if he did have control over his emotions -- something he decidedly did not have right now -- and Quetz is left with the sheer force of it, how much he dislikes it. Everything. Her. The tree. The knowing tone she'd eluded to something he so carefully kept secret. Her reaching out to him, something that comes coupled with a lack of understanding so deep that she can sense the gap between them.

She speaks of love, and worth, and Silco knows that it is something that cannot just be given freely. He has no concept of that now, and any possibility of that was left drowned and buried over a decade ago when he'd been discarded for being inconvenient.

All of that is to say, that Silco is so wrapped up in trying to get her away (while still trying to choke her) that he doesn't really hear the words she communes to him, and instead he's left with surprise when she's suddenly pulled away from him, and his arm pops and there's a sick sensation of wet dislocation and pain that both of his eyes are wide and unblinking. His hands obviously loosen, and she's already pulled away. He may be experienced with pain, but that does not make it any easier to deal with, and he's left wheezing and paralyzed by it for long enough that she can get away. Hell, if it weren't for the fact that Set would probably not let her, she could have killed him at that moment, as he was so vulnerable and weak.

One hand claws at his arm, and he exudes such pure, incandescent rage. It's blinding, hot, and swallows everything. He won't chase after her -- can't, even if he were to stumble up and follow, he's too weak and powerless to do anything, and he knows it -- but his mind revolves around something Sebastian said recently, about renegotiating, and it's thundering in his head like a mantra.

Because getting hurt in public seems to be the way to motivate Silco to turn a demon on someone. ]