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

oh my god voryn i love you

[zauneyete]

[ Bells ring loud in his head, and his single hand rises to his head, his feet uncoordinated. It is a double-whammy, as soon as the eyepatch is sheared off, Silco has something of a difficult moment. Not because of her words, though he is tempted to goad her with all he has seen, but because for the first time in a long while, the eye is seeing something, and it's looking for him. Silco is used to the vision from the Hag's eye cropping up at inopportune times, but he is not used to the odd sort of double vision that comes with it, already attuned to him, he can see through it, and the vision of what is before him, to what she can see.

He sees her arrow loosed, sees where he should be, and his steps are quick though uncoordinated, the kicking up dust as she loosed it toward him, it doesn't meet his mark only because he can see where she is aiming, where he is supposed to be, his feet move faster than his mind does, adjusting to his double vision.

Though his undeath is what saves him, his reaction and movement are faster than what he could do on his own. It's his saving grace, though Voryn's taunting, cajoling words...

He sounds mad, laughing as he does. He is fortunate that their line of communion is broken, because mad laughter always makes his mind circle around the reason he did any of this, and Voryn's words break through that thought, and incite him. Anger him beyond anything. Does he find his reasoning paltry? Does he even know his reason? Could he even comprehend the reason Silco did anything?

Was it for the power for revenge? Oh, yes. Always. It had started with revenge on his enemies. Vander, Caitlyn, and Vi — they had all been here — and he'd been choked and murdered in the street when Sebastian came to him. Was it so surprising that he wanted them to suffer, wanted them kept from his daughter? Was it so shocking that he wanted them to wither and crumple, find that there was no hope for any of them? That their beloved Piltover — yes, he foolishly included Vander and Vi in that — would be returned to them? Was that petty? Paltry? Silco knew he was powerless compared to those here. Look at Voryn with his great magics and works, Hayame with her arrows. And here he was moving too fast to get hit, standing against them, like he was an equal threat, and that was not his own power. It never could have been. Silco was a man of books and numbers, but he had Always been willing to grasp it when it was offered.

Voryn enraged him. To call his reasoning paltry, when he so desperately wanted to return something as foolish as a dead "moon and star" to his world. He could have him, easily, and he threw that option to the mud, because of... what? Disbelief? He mocked him with that disbelief, as they all did, questioning whether the shards were real, when he could touch Jinx's and know that it was her. Ever out of reach of communion, but Silco knew it, even so.

He moves without thinking, his feet silent and quick on the stone as he moves. He could not close the eye that had attuned to the eye — of course, it would project onto that eye's vision — but he was laser focused, his anger spiking, boiling over. He bowls into Voryn, pushing him onto the ground with a violent one-handed shove. He materializes from his invisibility at that moment, but he does not stop. His foot lashes out with a kick to his side before he's on top of him, his knife dropped elsewhere, he shoves him to the ground with one hand, eyes wild, and crazed. His lips peeled back in a grimace, his hissed words were nearly a shout. ]

You know nothing about my reasons! [ From his peeled-back lips, there is a hint of fangs. Silco is clearly not just human anymore. ] Don't you dare to mock them, I will slay you where you stand —

[ He is wide open, so blinded by rage, and fury. ]

everyone here is very okay

[warmare]

[In her ignorance of just who the Hag's Eye is attuned to, Hayame makes a mistake. She assumes that surely the holder is the demon itself- was he not the one who had declared he "acknowledged" her, that he was ever so dutiful in his attentions? Was he not the one most likely to use that information against her, the same as he had kidnapping her in the first place, taunting her with the knowledge that she was meeting someone in secret? Even knowing Silco was his master... She had never considered that man of particular interest to her beyond her need to kill him for his choice of faction and smarmy mouth. She did not think he cared for her or her dealings in any specific way either. Yima, perhaps, she had considered, if the demon wished to present himself as a loyalist or receive some sort of favor, but... ?

She does not realize that Silco is able to dodge her arrow because he can see where she is aiming. She assumes in the split second that she has that she had miscalculated. That though she had trained with two eyes again that perhaps thinking it improved her sight had been a placebo after all, a trick of the mind glad to be a mockery of whole again, but in reality... Had she grown so used to aiming with only the one? She closes the sickly green orb with a snarl, turning to see-

Voryn's insane reaction, the laughter, the shriek, the words, and the twirl, all of it... What the hell was wrong with him? Hayame had not known, that he had not known, and so she is stunned for a split second, her arrow wavering where it seeks the invisible path their enemy follows, relying on faint sound of boot and breath. Taunting twas one thing, but this was a battlefield, they had to keep their wits, not lose them?

She wonders if bahr'zuil is worse than n'wah.

And in that instant, Silco's invisibility is shed, he springs, and instead of taking advantage and attempting to plunge that knife of his into her main heart or into Voryn's face to actually take one of them out properly and even his odds he shoves the other man, kicking and scrabbling atop of him with his single fucking hand as he rages like a madman (two, there's fucking two of them- ?), but Hayame-

Hayame does not care (even as she rages that he seemed to judge her in that moment so inconsequential as to leave himself wide open). Let him be mad. There were easy ways to dispose of a man who had descended to no better than a rabid dog.]

Seize him, Dagoth!

[She will trust him with that much, that he can do it, whether he runs the man through with the blade he'd been holding, used some sort of magic, or just grabbed him with his godsdamned hands. Whatever needed to be done to prevent him from fleeing like a coward, from turning back invisible to slip away as she finishes whipping back around in a whirl of inky black mane and tail, flashing hooves, and the glint of her arrowhead. One leveled right at Silco's head as he rants about mockery, about reasons in a screaming rage... while her voice is ice cold.]

Your selfish reasons die with you, gaki.

[She doesn't wait a second longer before she releases the arrow.

And as she does... she accidentally reopens that unwanted left eye, just in time for Silco to catch a glimpse of his own incoming death.]

[sharmat]

( the kick lands and momentarily winds him, enough that his prone position on the ground is ripe for silco to take charge of. it's perhaps a testament to voryn's patience when he's straddled by the human and does nothing to dislodge him despite the foul memories it evokes. in another time in another place, he's been in this same position, struggling against a seasoned warrior from the north, enduring the barbarism until his lord and king came to slay them and save him. for hayame to take that role now is unexpected; however, saving is the last thing he needs.

the general in him criticizes the man for dropping his knife rather than taking the opportunity to run him through with it. if silco were capable of pinning him effectively, this position could have spelled his death. while there are many counters to being on his back, voryn leaves silco there on top of him, because it will give them an advantage when it comes to killing him.

the diplomat in him criticizes the man for declaring his intent to slay him when their goals are so similar. voryn has held to meridian ideals for the sole fact that his world—and only his world—must be restored for him to carry out his vengeance. caring not for any other, he would form quiet alliances if it served him. but this time has passed, and this creature of nihilism that silco has let himself become seems mindlessly hateful. these are the easiest monsters to destroy.

taking hold of silco's lapels, voryn risks impalement, too, by pulling the man closer. until his mouth rests against his ear, speaking intimately there to ensure he's heard even through spat vitriol. ) I pity you, Silco... You are stubborn, but your desire for vengeance is weaker than my own. Because of this, you shall never succeed against me.

But I wish you better luck on your next attempt.

( voryn drops back on hayame's last word, cheek having briefly pressed to silco's in a mockery of an embrace. his vice-like hold on silco's clothing is used to shove his upper body higher so that they may look each other in the eye as the arrow strikes, uncaring that whatever comes through the man's head will be spilled upon him. )

[zauneyete]

[ Oh.

He doesn't notice Hayame's words, he barely hears Voryn's over the pounding rush of furious blood in his head. An escalation that leaves his fingers trembling in white fury, his eye — that eye — looking down at Voryn with hatred.

It burns. His fury. Weaker he calls it. Weaker than his? Does he even know what those took from him? Did anyone? They mocked him, called him weak, derided him, because they had worlds that would be kind to them, or purposes to go back to. Silco wants to wring Voryn's neck, and show him what a mockery it was to call him weak that his vengeance was nothing compared to his. Some Moon-and-star nonsense, a lover that would inevitably betray him, perhaps? A trusted friend? They were nothing. None of them were.

Couldn't they see that? Of course they couldn't, so enamored with the worlds that they came from, the promise of what they could bring, that they refused to see the rot that lurked within each and every one. What made them so worthy? What value would they bring to this universe? What point could any of them have? He wants to rant, and rage, and tell them that they are being foolish, but they would not listen, would they? Why would they care, so swollen with dreams of returning to their perfect worlds, their perfect homes. For Silco could not imagine a life, in which he would bring back a world with nothing in it, and wasn't that what they all had? These worlds, with "good lives" were all that could motivate some of them, for they wanted to preserve their position. They had to. Nobody who came from a place like he did would be caught dead reviving it. Would they? He had said this, he had shared it, what these rotted worlds were like, where their pollution would seep into the very bones of their worlds, no matter what they did. But would they listen to him? Would any of them?

Oh no, none of them would. He was the lost one, the derided one. The one that they mocked and looked at as a creature to be destroyed. He was supposedly weak to all of them. Nothing. He made an enemy of all of them, and they still didn't respect him. He would lay waste to their very city if given the chance, and they still treated him like a piece of refuse. Something to kick to the side on their way toward whatever end goal they had in mind. Even the Harbinger did not want him to succeed, for they had placed him in this obstacle in particular. Given him the very two that were so ready to slay him. To murder him. To crush his shard, and then —

Voryn lets go, a mockery of unwanted intimacy, as Silco's dual-vision overtakes him, and his head is lifted in perfect time. He can see it coming, he can't move, he can't dodge, could he —

But what about — What will happen to —

Oh no — ]

No, Ji ——

[ Hissed out as it is, his tone shaking, he almost says a word he refuses to share, the shock of his realization that there was something more important than anything hidden away, and nobody knew where it was, not even —

Hayame's arrow pierced his skull, sending flying bits of bone, hair, and gore everywhere as it flew through the other end. Likely, some of it found its way onto Voryn, and everything for Silco, all of that rage and fear, it went black. Silent. All of that strife, all of that fury, and it was like taking a storm, and plucking it out of the sky. Like all of it had suddenly ceased and was silent.

A black, oil-slick shard clinked to the ground, sharp and daggerlike, and it teetered at the edge of a gap in the floor, before it started to tip over, the universe deciding to grant the man a single favor. ]

time-skippy magic

[warmare]

[It happens fast, because Hayame is not the one about to die. Her life does not flash before her eye. (Eyes.) She is not privy to Silco's thoughts because she is not a Harbinger and she doesn't want to be in the head of that man, of any man, of anyone that isn't her. The wizened, bitter thing masquerading as a human lifts his head, begins to say something-

And then her arrow bursts through his head, in one side and out the other.

For all that she has been accused in the past by enemy and ally alike of being cruel, Hayame takes no pleasure or delight in the grotesque sight of what the long, thick arrows designed to be fired from the powerful bow of a jinba can do to bone. She feels proud, yes, the thrill of victory, but it won't be complete until his shard is crushed into just as many pieces as his skull. The blood, the brain matter, she's seen it before, splattered on the snow instead of half onto stone flooring and half onto a temporary ally. What she wants to see is the man's corpse vanish, leaving behind-

His soul, clattering to the ground, skidding, tottering--

She thinks that she shouts. Something like "grab it", something to Voryn, she knows they both scramble for it, but in that precious fucking second... the inky black thing is gone. Or no, just "gone" would have been a blessing. Instead, it lands in the possession of someone who should have just as much reason as any of them to kill the man called Silco. Someone who claimed to be a Meridian, but who refused to shatter that shard, refused to return it to them so that it might be done, no matter what they said-

And just that comically, tragically, ironically, pathetically... Silco's shard is safe, he lives, and they-]

Son of a bitch!

[The side of Hayame's fist slams into the stone walls of the labyrinth, rage burning in her eyes. Both of them, even the sickly green one that had been forced into her skull. One that, unbeknownst to her...

Temporarily had no one watching through it for the first time since it had been implanted.]