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

[redsoil]

[ Caught in the stance that they are, they look like a pair caught in tableau — arms extended as if in the final throes of a long and arduous dance, posed before a grand audience. Gen looks feral with resentment and fear, and Set cannot help but feel enticed by it; he's been in this position before, with Gen. He's been below him, whispering to him to not be mad; he's been over him, lost in the drugged haze of his mind; he's been with Gen in his arms, huddled in a dark corner; he's been in a prison cell with the young man at his feet. Now, they are hand-in-hand and Set's expression burns with something equally feral in return.

Competitiveness lives within him, but so does his desire to right the scales between them. Gen will just have to suffer his fear during this date, to live punished for his actions, and they will be okay. They will be fine again, he and Gen, back not to friends... but to some sort of hard-to-describe relationship, and a promise. ]

No.

[ As Gen moves to present him with confrontational 'affection', he breathes the word out with a broad smile. ]

Come at me as a Zenite thinking this is a battle, and I will break your legs and have you crawl to the end of this competition at my side. I am taking you on a date as Minegishi Gen. My Gen, with his beautiful, rotten attitude and a death-wish that coexists alongside a wish to hold onto things he thinks he should not get to have. My Gen, who deserves to be adored without having to change. Though he can, if he wants to.

[ He shoves Gen back again, this time to the other side of the chariot and hikes his leg up to pin him there with a planted foot in his solar plexus. To lean, flexible as a snake, toward him and run his fingers along Gen's throat, down towards where his Shard rests. A soft stroke of his hand, contrasting the brutal dig of his heel. ]

Now. Will you take my hand? Just take it, hold it in yours as you stand next to me and feel the wind, the rush, the speed!

[epiprocta]

[ Set hurls him across the chariot to shove him against the opposite side of the carriage railing, and Gen gives a breathless little cough as a hard edge rams into the bottom of his ribcage. There's a snarl on his lips as he whirls around to face Set once more, each word spat out sharply -- ]

Stop throwin' me around like some --

[ That indignant retort of his catches in his throat less because of the foot digging into his sternum, and more because of the hand running down his throat. That gentle touch against his shard, ever tender yet ever threatening. Set must be able to feel the way Gen's throat shifts as he swallows hard, then gives a hoarse exhale; his hands are grasped tight against the chariot's railing behind him, struggling both to anchor himself both physically and mentally.

Then, without warning, he ducks his head down to bite at Set's hand.

His teeth catch at the side of Set's finger, digging in hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to draw blood. No doubt a familiar gesture for Set, because how many times now has Gen bitten at Set's hand? Amidst the coils of that tree's roots, and huddled together while purifying their Discord, and simply in bed together. It's practically a sign of intimacy for them, one that probably only Set truly understands -- that twisted little dose of intermingled affection and violence and trust and cruelty.

It's what Gen is banking on as he digs his teeth in just a little more, tongue brushing against the pad of Set's fingers as he mutters, muffled and slurred, past that obstruction, ] ... you sure love runnin' your mouth like you know everythin' 'bout me.

[ Not that Set is entirely wrong in what he says. In fact, most of what Set says is correct, and it fills him with equal parts thrill and ire. (The only incorrect part -- that he deserves to be adored. What a joke. As if.) Gen's next breath huffs heavy and wet against Set's hand, against spit-slick skin and tingling bitemarks, before he unclenches his jaw to loosen his teeth from around that finger. It's instead replaced by a hand of his own, the one that's still flesh and blood, as he grabs at Set's hand. ]

Get your foot off me if you want me to stand next to you, asshole.

[ It's the first time he's ever been the one browbeaten into a date, not the other way around. ]

[redsoil]

[ Like a poorly socialized hound, biting at the hand it doesn't know anything about — whether that hand will feed it or beat it. That's what Gen reminds him of, as he sinks his teeth into his finger and Set wonders if Kenos has stripped him so thoroughly of his divinity that one day, he might even be able to adopt a scar. He heals well, steadily, and has never suffered a permanent mark; wondering, in that moment, if he could will his own body to accept proof of Gen's existence upon his flesh. Maybe Gen might like that, might take solace in it? ]

I do not know everything. Though one day, I will. What I do know of you, I see no reason to be hesitant to name. I see you, Gen.

[ He was the one who opened his arms to get to know Gen, vicious and resentful and longing for death — and those arms remained opened, as Gen left for Zenith and they were able to remain open because Gen recanted and returned his son to him. Slowly, Set lowers his leg and slips it into a corner, giving the young man room to join him at his side; flexing his hand as if to test a bruise and force his flesh to remember the sting of those teeth. And then, Gen takes his hand. Smiling, hot and savage, he slips himself in alongside Gen and noses along his jaw with raw fondness. ]

I look for you.

[ The breakneck speed at which the chariot drives forth increases, as the chimeric creature gives an undulating hop and cries out, shrill and falcon-like even with a crocodile's maw. The speed at which they move is too fast for sightseeing, but Set's rakish smirk has the atmosphere of a guy who's just gotten Gen on a motorcycle behind him and wants nothing more than to go fast and enjoy some adrenaline. With a jerk of his arm, he whips the chariot around a tight corner — a firm presence that doesn't flinch, in case Gen needs to grab onto him. His voice a purr as he tucks words into Gen's ear. ]

I heard that young, hotblooded men like "fast cars" and "wild rides"! Are you like that, Gen? Ah, hold tight. We are going up!

[ Up, meaning that with a leap, the chimera drags the chariot off the ground and onto a low roof of the residential district, charging across the tiled rooftop and bouncing them across the small gaps as it is given its head. They're not going to be staying near the Oracle's siren song, not when Set can rush Gen around the city at breakneck speed, and maybe pick up a meal for him! ]

[epiprocta]

[ He gives a grumbling little huff as Set backs off, carefully easing himself back upright; every jolt and shudder of the chariot beneath him still earns an uneasy little twitch, his canine ears flicking back and tail pulled close around him, but at least he's starting to find his feet somewhat. As long as he keeps his hands firmly grasping at the chariot's railing, he'll be alright, he thinks.

Even if he's frozen a bit too stiffly in place to lean his head away when Set comes nosing at throat like an obnoxious cat. ]

Your tastes are as bad as ever.

[ And he tries not to think about what a ridiculous arrangement this is. Not an easy task by any means, not when he's far too aware of what's happened between them -- the way he'd held Set's precious objects hostage, the following fight where Set has literally cracked his skull, their last encounter in the miserable, dim lighting of Springstar's jail. To say that no part of him misses the tenuous relationship they had before all of that would be a lie; what they'd had would be impossible to call friendship, but it had been an understanding. One much deeper than he'd expect from most people, and one he'd certainly never ask for. One he might not ever find again in another person.

In that context, it's just a little easier for him to ignore the circumstances surrounding them, and pay attention to just Set's words. ]

-- you think my shithole of a hometown had enough room for 'wild rides?' [ He has to raise his voice to heard over the wild clatter of wheels over cobblestones. ] As if anyone in that place had their shit together enough for a 'fast car'!

[ His gaze is automatically drawn towards a place in the distance, to the unseen beckoning of the Oracle's arena. It's not as if he's blind to what Set is doing -- keeping him from their main goal. But, fine. Whatever. As long as Set is here, that means he's not getting to the Oracle. They can be naughty students walking into class late together. And so as the chariot vaults onto the rooftops, rattling Gen to the bones with each bump and sending his adrenaline levels skyrocketing, he gives a sharp bark of laughter. God, this is so fucking stupid. ]

Bet a bunch of those lousy fucks back home would've lost their minds if they could ever ride something like this. [ But they're not here. He is. It earns another laugh before Gen straightens up to shout into the rush of the wind -- ] Get fucked, assholes!

[redsoil]

[ His taste is terrible! ]

Maybe so! But, who cares? Who can stop us from being whatever we want to one another?

[ His laughter is wild, carefree in the whip of the wind and the drive of the chariot as he feels the tension in Gen's body, the terror simmering just under the surface. He's not like other Shard-bearers. Death is a craving, somewhere in Gen's broken heart and soul, but he truly fears pain. If Zenith wins, and Set loses their competitive promise — he will make sure Gen's end is gentle. That it is free of pain and fear, and instead rich with the love he seems to lack.

It isn't that he is unaware of what Gen has done, when pushed to the brink. That holding Set's precious child hostage was unforgivable, that taunting him with a lie that nearly caused him to recant all that they meant to one another was madness — but, Ruby had conveyed it to him: Gen's reluctance, his confusion, the sweetness below his hostility. And Gen himself had recanted. Not to Set's face, but through a proxy and oh, that was endearing. ]

I do not know anything about the place you come from, Gen! I can guess, but what good is that, when I would rather hear you speak of it?

[ This just might be the first time that Gen has ever willingly offered Set any word about his life before. While Set is not one to pry into people's lives, when the information is there, he likes to engage. To learn of people, and Gen counts among the most important for him to learn of — since, Gen is the one who keeps saying Set knows everything about him, and Set has to keep refuting it mildly. All he can tell is that Gen, as a Zenite, either believes his home is truly gone, or doesn't want it to exist at all. ]

They can absolutely get fucked, though! Hear that, shithole hometown of Minegishi Gen? He is here! His beloved one is here! And you are dead and gone!

[ He cries it into the wind as well, holding fast to the young man at his side. For a Meridian, he still has such a streak of violence that marks him as a Zenite. An understanding of their desires that — well, he fights quietly. ]

[epiprocta]

[ Of course Gen still fears pain.

He'd originally been a painfully normal child, after all. A ordinarily soft, ordinarily weak, ordinarily fragile little boy who dreamed of a future full of peace and devoid of suffering, simply seeking happiness for himself and his loved ones. Even now, as he seeks oblivion for himself, some tiny, foolish, endlessly stupid and deluded fragment of him still dreams of a future in which he can live as himself, without shame, without suffering, without pain.

-- ridiculous, isn't it. ]

... not like there's much to know about it.

[ There's a strange catharsis that follows his reckless howling, and Gen breathes in deep rasps as he leans more heavily against the sides of the chariot; his expression is tensed, the corner of his lips pulled taut as he struggles between the urge to laugh and the urge to scream into the wind once more. His voice comes hoarse as a result, punctuated by a hard swallow before Gen continues loudly. ]

It was a miserable little shithole full of miserable people. Anyone decent and worth their salt left as soon as they could, because they knew that was the only way to live a proper life. It was shit. Shit! [ He barks another spiteful laugh into the rapid shift of scenery whipping by them, though it's breathless and choked from his next words. ] ... 'course it was. It's the place that made me the way I am now.

[ 'But is it really?' It's some noxious little voice that whispers at him from the far corner of his mind, as sweet and tempting as poisoned honey. 'Even without your parents, without Yuko, you might have still been the same. Even without your hometown, you might have still been the type of sick monster to watch your beloved childhood friend being beaten unconscious and bloody, and c --' ]

I just want it gone. I can't rest, so long as I know it can come back. [ A hard jolt of the chariot has him stumbling back a half-step, hands gripping pale-knuckled against the railing. But even as he sinks back against Set, his gaze is still fixed on the scenery rushing by them, so fast that it's almost just a blur of colors. A part of him wants to leap into it, and let himself be dashed to pieces upon the pavement below. A much greater part of him wants to fling his hometown against it and watch it shatter to a million pieces. ] ... I could've stayed Meridian, y'know, if I could just do that. But it's not like any of you would understand what I mean.

[ Now when they fight so desperately to preserve their own worlds, uncaring of what else they might be permitting to exist because of that decision. ]

[redsoil]

Then, I will not let it come back.

[ And it's as easy as that, for Set. He tips his head, as if incredulous of the idea that Gen could have remained Meridian if only someone had given him that. As if he thought none of them would permit him such absolution; as a god of war and destruction, Set sees nothing wrong with leaving some things dead. It happens. ]

I am only Meridian to keep a promise that requires my world to live. I care nothing for anyone else's, in truth; I would leave them all destroyed for my own. Your hometown among them, easily. I vowed to John Gaius to destroy his enemies on Earth. I believe entirely in my ability to slaughter the Empire for Cassian Andor. Once home... I am strong beyond measure. I am war and annihilation itself.

[ He twists into the tension in Gen's body, reaching up to pinch his ear with exasperated fondness. To gather the length of his throat into his palm and give it a lingering squeeze, as if weighing the exact length of rope it'd take to hang him. Or the amount of material he'd need for a collar.

A faint cruelty lingers in his smile, a self-confidence and self-loathing that's so different from many other Meridians. Because his heart is Zenith in nature, it sings selfish and free and hedonistic, bound in love for a single (maybe two) individuals that could affect him at all. ]

Whatever you say about your hometown, is enough for me to know. If you want it gone forever, I will make it so — whether I am Meridian or Zenith at victory's end. I care nothing for the sanctity of life, for all life ends. Why not your hometown? Why not by any means?

[ There is a little bitterness in his tone, a poison that had grown after being so thoroughly torn apart and left to decay. A resentment that resonates with Gen, without words; wasn't Set fated to be wicked and lonely, wasn't he made for it? ]

I do understand your desire... it is why I can treasure you where others cannot.