NOVEMBER EVENT | THE HARBINGER ORACLE

[beleos]

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]

Comments

[warmare]

[Hayame has never liked magic, since the day she was first exposed to it in Horos. She had made her way through the world by knowing what she could expect from those she hunted, from her enemies, from those she was supposed to subserviate to and call "master"... and magic threw a wrench into all of it. For the longest time... She had even resisted learning it herself, despite how Kenos seemed intent on forcing them to, and how useful she objectively knew it could be.

But before this Oracle, she had humbled herself and gone to an instructor.

She dodges the first "bullet". The second, having been aimed well to anticipate how she might do that, skims by her unarmored knee and leaves a burning line of heat and blood behind. But before the third gandr moves towards her hand... the Meridian spell she had learned is summoned into existence, and the shot scatters against an invisible barrier.

... She had a shield, too. And before hers can break, she brings forward into a gallop across the space between them, raising her bow to fire off another shot before she can close the gap and bear down upon the smaller woman with a half ton of jinba flesh.]

[erbe]

[Well. Perhaps once-upon-a-lifetime she could have stopped this freight-train of a woman, but since Rin depleted her gem supply fighting the cat monster in Yima's basement, well...

Her best option is to send magical energy into the magical circuits of her legs and make a run for it. There's no need to face a one-woman battering ram head on. For now Tohsaka makes a rapid run for it — bolting down the narrow maze corridor and making a sharp turn when it swings left. A part of her hopes this brings them closer to the goal. However another part has her peeking over her shoulder occasionally to keep an eye out for anymore of those startlingly large arrows.]

[warmare]

[This is what happens when you align yourself with a witch who keeps monsters in her basement!

Hayame recognizes that glow of magic racing down the other woman's legs. She had seen her use it at the Exalt Oracle trial, when the will of the effigy had not directly conflicted with the idea of allowing members of the enemy faction to live. They made her jump incredibly high, move incredibly fast, beyond what a human should be able to.

So Hayame knows what she has to do. She throws herself into a mad gallop after Rin through the tunnels, one hand clutching her bow and the other the girth worn just behidn her withers that, when gripped, allowed her to align her upper spine to the same angle a horse's neck would take when running, streamlining her body and allowing her to reach maximum speeds. With that, she is able to round the corner after the mage, but-

Her enhanced speed has her already halfway down the next branch of tunnel, and at the end... a door that will teleport her elsewhere, probably not to the same place it would take Hayame when she followed. So before she reaches it...

Hayame half rears up onto her hind legs as she skids to a stop for better aim, raising her six foot bow and drawing the string back to its full tension, aiming... aiming as her target gets farther and farther away...

Until she fires at her back.]

[erbe]

[It's just as Rin's hand is about to reach the door when Hayame's arrow strikes true. It's larger than a typical arrow meant for a human, yet still it wedges itself deep in Tohsaka's left shoulder blade. Piercing through her sweater and lodging itself firmly into her flesh.

The sudden pain elicits a breathless gasp from her. As if the pain stole away the air from her lungs. She stumbles. Her hand weakly reaches the door, and she half-turns to send out one last flurry, a barrage of magic bullets toward Hayame to distract her, before disappearing behind that door.]

🎀

[warmare]

[They were noticeably different- the arrows designed for a jinba’s bow, for a weapon over six feet long with string most humans could not draw to their elbow, let alone to their shoulder. The shaft is thicker, longer, sturdier, the arrowhead is heavier. The armor humans in her world wore, layers of leather and lacquer, could not stop this sort of arrow.

Piercing flesh was easy. It could be argued Rin was lucky that a bone took the brunt of the impact, rather than leave her skewered through or bleeding freely from both sides of a wound. No joy rushes through Hayame when she realizes she has hit her target, however. It was work, it was duty, it was what she had to do to get home.

All she does is pull another arrow from her quiver, prepared to try and get one last shot in-

But then the magic bullets fly. One hits her shield and scatters, the next cracks it, and the next shatters it, burning pain scoring over her equine chest as she twisted away, landing heavily back on all four hooves and only managing to twist back around to catch sight of her quarry disappearing through the door.

Gone. Injured, not dead or otherwise taken out of the running. Dropping her stance, Hayame puts a hand over the wound she had gained in retaliation, panting slightly from exertion and the mental effort it took her to use magic.

… Ah. There is no time to rest. No time to slack. The Harbinger Oracle was still calling. She is still looking forward to the end. The only end she would allow.

Without any further ado, Hayame renotches an arrow on her bowstring and charges through the door.]