kenoslogs | NOVEMBER EVENT | THE HARBINGER ORACLE

NOVEMBER EVENT | THE HARBINGER ORACLE

HEDGING YOUR BETS

Bearers feel it. Similar to when the Scorching Isles was opened, there is the same tug, from somewhere in the distance. Those who are in springstar feel it from closer, like a blossom of warmth in your heart, you feel the Oracle spring to life. Those in Highstorm feel it too, but distant. Far away. You remember Cyrus’s words, that it would come to life in Springstar, and you know, just from the relative distance, from how far away it feels – He was probably right.

So bearers must make their way to the center of Springstar’s residential district. Finding one’s way to Springstar will be difficult, in fact. Preparations have been underway since Cyrus’s announcement, and Springstar leaps into action. The Legionnaires are already marching by the time the first bearers start moving throughout the city. In addition to any of Meridian’s own preparations, the Legionnaires establish choke points and start organizing evacuations. It will be difficult to make your way through Springstar, but the closer bearers make it to the hedge maze, and what seems to be the oracle at the center, the warmer their chests feel. Throughout the city, it feels warm, like small wicks of heat. The closer bearers become, the more it feels like a torrent. It is burning them to their center and igniting them to their cores. Like the fire of drive, is what it feels like. Like the hunger for something more than just food, or anything else, like the anticipation of victory.

The maze itself is where it is the most intense as bearers start to make their way through the hedge maze. Vines and brambles lie within a neat hedge, and it looks like it is safe to jump, or scale, but the moment a bearer tries to jump it, cut through it, or even go beneath it, roots, brambles, and vines lash out to entrap bearers, and start to drag them down and into the hedges. You will have to figure out a way out – lest you be stuck for seemingly the near future.

Of course, when Dimitri’s hand touches the stone statue in the middle, it all goes dark, and wherever you were, whoever you were fighting –

Every bearer collapses at the same time.

YOU'D BETTER BE A-MAZE-ING!

In the dark, there is that fiery impression of the Harbinger. Competition, drive, disdain for even those that best them. It is clear, in the dark, with your eyes closed, that the Harbinger does not see the Bearers as worthy to obtain it. You feel ghostly hands on your mind, into you, as if it is delving for more, trying to pluck and pull out the right memory. It looks for victories, triumphs, defeats, or betrayals. Something that shows the mettle of the bearer, what it is looking for. When it finds what it is looking for – or is this just a dream? – after the bearer experiences the dream, they will get the distinct impression that it is not enough. That the Harbinger wants more. It wants to see what this bearer can do. It wants to see you rise to the challenge, bearer! Will you do as it wishes, and show it the scope of your mettle, or will you capitulate and let the Harbinger know that it was right – you aren’t enough?

The Harbinger wants you to prove them wrong. Can you do that? Will you use spite to convince it that it is wrong? The Harbinger at the center of this labyrinth imparts to bearers, that it will not allow the weak to succeed, that nobody who cannot reach it, would ever be able to protect them. They look down on bearers, and it is up to you, to convince them that you are worth their attention.

When bearers wake, they will be stuck in a foyer. The walls seem blank, and there is a door, leading further into the maze. It is not… fully dark, everything here seems to be lit just enough to move around without trouble, but it is not bright. Bearers can look left, and right, and see others beside them. They are not alone, but nor are they with others of their faction. No, you can feel it, between all of you, gathered here in one space. The humming of your shared aspect fills the room, as if all of you together in one space feels right.

You will not be able to stay. The foyer lasts only until the last person leaves, and if any try to stay behind and stationary, they will find that eventually a door appears, and the room begins to shrink. You had better get moving!

You must move further into the maze. You will find that grouping up for long periods of time becomes impossible, and moving from one door to the next can find foes, allies, or even neutral parties. Every door you open within this maze, leads to new and unusual locations. You may both walk in, from opposite ends, only to find that the doors are gone when you turn your back. Do you end up on a precarious path over spikes, lava, or even water? Do you walk into a room with your greatest desire, a hunger that can now never be sated? Will you do anything to find your way through the corridors? Will bearers help each other, and resist the call of the Harbinger, or will you push over even your treasured ones to win?

MADE IN THE SHADE

And even further in, as you start to catch sight of them, patches of darkness seep into the corners, into everything. They may be hidden, at first. They may lurk underneath patches of leaves, or in shadowed corners. But the longer bearers are within this labyrinth, the longer the shadows seem. They start to reach out, to pull bearers into their shadowy depths. You may feel malaise, or an unwillingness to continue, once you first step within these patches. The longer you are there, the harder it is to get out. You will need help from your friends or dear ones, or sheer strength of will – but can you fight on, as you start to lose the things that motivate you?

And then there are the visions. People you know, love, or trust, they round corners, just ahead. They seem just out of range, and at first, it is difficult to tell if they are there or not. But they happen to reappear, and then disappear around a corner. Try and chase them, if you dare. When your fingers touch their arm, or grab their clothing, or heaven forbid, if you pull them into a hug – it seems impossible to pull away. They were treasured, weren’t they? There is a reason they appear here, to you. Why would you want to pull them away? Why would you –

They reach out, their fingers seem long, as they reach toward your shard – they will not be deterred by clothing or armor, their fingers seem to bend and twist around the junctions – before they find purchase on your shard. They rip it from you, and it feels like you are being separated from something. It’s painful, it hurts, but the last thing you see, as they hold your shard in your hand, is someone you care very deeply for, placing the shard in the same place on their own body, and your own face smiles back at you, and it all goes black. You are gone. Into… nothing.

NOTES

Here are some prompts to set the scene and foundation of the Exalt Oracle! Please refer to the ooc post for more details about what’s happening in the labyrinth! Feel free to direct questions here.

If your character gets killed by a shadow-copy, please let us know in the reporting post that goes up on November 20th if they touch the effigy. If they do not, please let us know on the deaths page! Don't forget to report any dissipations as a whole! Please also let us know if your character is saved by another bearer, or if your character’s shard is taken by the shadow copy for the entire duration of the event. This will not result in any permadeath, but you might get some cool lore! Teehee! If your character defeats a shadow creature, please let us know [HERE]

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[ She'd be easy to miss in the flurry of active and motion going on around this hedge maze. If Atsumu weren't the type to make a point of looking out for openings and other players during high stress situations, he'd probably have scurried right on by her. Usually his other skills can't be directly carried over to something particularly useful during skirmishes and Oracle competitions like these, but that trained observation can come in handy.

Though it's debatable just how useful it is right now as he spots a perfectly benign looking woman sitting up there... holding a flask...

Wait a second, didn't he just have this exact conversation with a fellow Zenite about what she shouldn't just be kicking back and doing when push came to shove. ]

You were serious about sittin' around and drinkin'?!

[ He doesn't need to have seen her in person before (even though he has), because it seems easy to put two and two together here.

Surely there aren't more people who planned to make this Oracle event into a spectator sport? ]

[The young man named Atsumu (no longer an oni, shame) had made quite an impression on Communion, last Zenith... "got together". It had been almost nostalgic, "listening" to him and his fellows squabble amongst each other, too... Ah, she had thought. Youth.

So when he calls out to her, likely completely unaware that they have spoken before, as she wears the pretty blond shape of a woman who isn't twisted half into bestial shape for the day... Kiritsubo kicks pale feet somewhat playfully over the edge of the building, finishing her swig to put the flash down and use that hand to cup over her eyes as if to try and see him better all the way down there.]

Would you like me to cheer... ?

[Hopefully he isn't imagining pompoms...]

[ Look, the cheerleaders he knew didn't always use pompoms!

Sometimes they had thundersticks...

Either way, while she might not be able to see his facial expressions from this distance, she should be able to recognize the unimpressed posture as he crosses his arms and stares up disapprovingly at her. ]

I want you to get down here and help us out a little!

[ Observe more first hand, rather than at a distance. ]

[Oh, those things? They're cute, too, she supposes, but she's old-fashioned in some ways... Fans are where it's at.

There's a moment when Kiritsubo cups a hand around an ear, as if she's about to tell him she cannot hear him properly and he will need to speak up, but. No, she heard him fine enough. What a fussy thing... Also cute.

So, chuckling to herself, she cups her hand around her mouth instead to call back.]

You should go left!

[Was that helping out a little? There were some advantages, you know. To distance (and height).]

[ It should be beyond obvious to anyone with half a brain that someone up high like that can see the entire maze. Here Atsumu was just the other day getting upset at Rin refusing to call him smart, and yet it didn't occur to him at all that Kiritsubo's position is actually helping out the Zenites until literally just now.

He's quickly spinning around so she can't say his entire face go red, which would work well if it weren't for the fact that his ears are turning red too.

All he can do is hope her vision is average at best. ]

You better be right back that!

[ He says while trudging left. ]

[Kiritsubo just won't tell him that her vision is superb. Who needs to know that? She had tried to hint at her usefulness to Zenith in their little talk over Communion before this... but only this boy had seemed to attempt to take her seriously. Most had ignored her, one had outright dismissed her. So... she will not be helping them, she thinks ♡

Atsumu, though...]

Or what, boy~?

[She teases playfully from her vantage point, booted feet kicking idly... but she is still watching his progress. Still tracking that of others'.]

[ The urge to be petty over the desire to win isn't one that Atsumu can fully understand, though the urge to be petty in general sure is. He'd definitely had his nose mashed out of joint over some other things that went on during that Communion chat, and that'll likely come back to bite him later on during all of this.

Her question throws him off though, and he hesitates as he tries to think of what that "or else" would be. ]

Just don't be wrong!

[ And comes up with nothing. He could pick a fight with her later, sure, but that wouldn't do anyone any good. He's certainly not going to pick a fight now. He might be able to get up to her using his powers, but that would really waste his time.

So he's going to say while picking up speeding moving left. ]

[She had tried to tell someone that she wasn't often wrong, too, but, well. That had been dismissed with the rest. So for now, she will just keep keeping it to herself, she supposes. But it makes her chuckle.

Just don't be wrong? As if the Kiritsubo of the world she had left behind was ever really wrong.

Taking a drag from her pipe, she watches Atsumu's progress from above, quiet when she feels he needs no guidance, but when she catches sight of a much larger and likely more powerful Meridian on the other side of the pruned maze, both on collision course...]

Stay right there!

[She calls back down with a little wave of her voluminous sleeve.]

I would hug the hedges if I were you~!

[ This deep into the maze, but still so far from the end, it’s impossible for Atsumu to tell just how much Kiritsubo is or isn’t helping him right now. His read on her isn’t too strong right now either, so it’s hard to tell if she’s just messing with him for the fun of it or not too. It’s not like like there aren’t apparently members of Zenith who have decided to betray their team for reasons that Atsumu can’t even begin to fathom.

So when she calls out that order he’s not sure how seriously he should take her. Though he does freeze up, he barely shuffles towards the hedges, glancing up at the tiny figure that is becoming increasingly hard to make out the details of as he goes.

It seems so pointless to him, but… at the same time he’s watched plenty of action and fantasy movies where heroes come up against dangerous traps, or there are monsters running around the maze. He wouldn’t put it past Kenos to have something like that floating about in here. It’s a big reason he decides to reach out to her through a communion call. ]

Does this have some kinda point to it?

[Ah, yes. Communion would be the way to do it more sensibly now, she supposes. Though it would have been more fun to keep calling as if it were some sort of cheer.]

If the point is to avoid running into a big bad Meri when you could just wait there a moment to avoid a confrontation... ? Then yes, there is a point~

[Farther away now, she still kicks her feet a bit playfully as she watches.]

Why not chat with me while you wait? Unless you're ready for blood?

[ The way it's said rubs him the wrong way, and now that they're communicating this way she'll be able to feel that flare up of agitation from him. Still, he admitted himself he wasn't much of a fighter, so he holds his tongue on that front. ]

It ain't that I'm afraid of blood or anything, but I'm trying to win this thing, and fightin' would set me back is all.

[ Excuses work better when the person you're making them too can't feel how much of a lie they are radiating off of you. ]

[Kiritsubo is just… not going to point out how much of a lie those words sound like when strung together that way, Communion sense or not. Despite her words, and how teasing they might sound…

It’s not like she’s the biggest fan of blood most days. Eh.]

Of course.

Say.

What sort of world do you want to make?

[ A little blood is fine. He's not freaked out by the idea of it, but the kind of blood he'd be losing if he got into a serious for with a Meri, especially one of the wilder ones...

It just doesn't appeal to him. He's so early into this competition for the Oracle too, and how embarrassing would it be to be taken out instantly? ]

Huh? You're askin' that kind of question right now?

[ He pauses though, back against the wall as he strains to listen for sounds of footsteps. His painfully normal hearing does not help much at times like this. ]

I don't really know. Just one I can live in, I guess.

[Eh... You get tired of it after a century or two of following around some of the four strongest youkai in the country. Sure, sometimes its fun, but she's never been an actual sadist. Or masochist. She's nice and comfy in the middle.]

Why not?

[Her reply to his question is flippant and flirty, but her tone takes on a somewhat disappointed cast at the sort of answer she ends up receiving.]

That's it? People can live almost anywhere, you know. There's not that much difference between humans and cockroaches when it comes to survival...

[ It's clear he's distracted as he inches forward, straining to hear if the footsteps sound like they're getting further away. It seems like they are, but he's not the best judge of non-visual cues like that. ]

Don't tell me you're one of those types who're gonna go comparin' humanity to insects or whatever? Besides, a world has to exist for you to live on it in the first place. Even a cockroach ain't surviving in a vacuum.

[ It's a dismissive answer without much thought behind it, though it does betray a little about his philosophy, and what he thinks about the Meridian vs. Zenith arguments. At least, it does if you turn your head and squint a little while mulling his words over. ]

Only in their ability to survive. Humans are far more interesting than cockroaches.

[Kiritsubo, however, doesn't seem to be turning her head and squinting. Perhaps on purpose, but.]

But there are many people who would rather be dead than live in a certain type of world. Are there not?

[Just "a world"? That was far too simple.]

[ Where she's perched, she'll be able to see Atsumu sticking his head around the corner as he checks to make sure the coast really is clear here. ]

That's their problem them. I'm gonna keep tryin' to survive no matter the odds.

[ Easier said than done really. He figures he's lived through some pretty horrific things already while still wants to keep going though. ]

[What an impatient boy she had on her hands here! It was tempting to scold him for not simply trusting her and waiting for her signal, but... Sigh, fine...]

Well, you are welcome to come back and tell me what sort of world you plan for once you figure it out~

[She will just chalk it up to that, for now. The young were confident like that.]

If you wait ten or so seconds more... You're clear to scamper forward.

[ Confident, foolhardy, and bad at planning ahead. Atsumu was all of these things and more in largely negative ways, but sometimes when your plan was to try and make a world from scratch, you needed someone who would leap before he looked.

Good thing there were at least some others to try and yank him back before he jumped right over the edge of a cliff.

He freezes at the warning, glancing up at the spot she's still perched at, before looking back down the maze, squinting like it'll help him see around the corner. ]

... Whoever this asshole is, they could afford to walk a little faster.

My, my, so hasty~

[She fills the seconds with a little reply, but once it has done, once she has examined his surroundings in the maze from her high vantage point...]

There. You are safe to move.

[He won't run into a Meridian if he continues forward, now. What happens later, well, she won't guess. Things are moving, there are so many pieces on the board... And she is interested to see how things go.

But until then...]

Do your best, little Zenith ♡

[If he reaches out again, she will answer... But otherwise... Now he's on his own.]

[ She's helped him out up to this point, and while he doesn't reply back with actual words, there is a vague sense of mild gratitude from him, even if he's not bothering to use troublesome words like "thanks".

It's the least she'll hear from him for the rest of this particular Oracle based game as he slips forward and deeper into the maze. She might still be able to see him as he moves further in, but the angle probably makes it harder and harder to actually see and help as the maze stretches out. ]

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NOVEMBER EVENT | THE HARBINGER ORACLE

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omg so sorry this one got lost in the inbox sauce

No worries! I ended up falling behind on tags myself anyway

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