⏳ THE SCORCHING ISLE: Oracle Event One ⏳

[beleos]

ARRIVAL

All Bearers have heard whispers of them - the Oracles. Mysterious and unknown entities of an abstract nature, they serve as the heart of each faction’s cause - both as a means to an end and a very real stepping stone in achieving their objectives. To claim an Oracle means growing ever closer to victory: to see your homes restored as they were, or to herald in a new one of your making.

So you go.

A Cornerstone has been set up for each faction; one for the Zenith and one for the Meridian in Yima’s manor and Heliopolis, respectively. They warn you that upon transportation, your safety cannot be guaranteed and there is no telling what waits for you beyond - to be prepared. To make sure you have whatever you deem necessary with you before you go, as there is no telling when - or how - you will be coming back. CONTINUED HERE...

NOTES

Upon your arrival, you woke up with an HOURGLASS NECKLACE. Please refer to the Time Mechanics on the OOC Summary and bottom of this post for details on its usage.

The COURTYARD is frozen in time. Player Characters and the Great Tree are the only signs of moving, free life in the courtyard. During the intro, time magic does not work.

Characters are free to investigate but cannot move beyond the courtyard if you choose a prompt during the intro. You may mingle among your fellow Bearers or speak with [MR. TIBBS] if you so choose. (Also? LOOK AT HIM HELP)

Iconoclasts and Stargazers will notice Aspect benefits/detriments now.

All characters will be weak for the 24 hours - think like mild flu - and unable to leave until Mr. Tibbs has dispersed them. This is the time in which any threads with the NPC will be carried out.

The INTRO concludes with said dispersal of PC’s once interactions concluded. They will be sent to a location around the castle of your choosing; they are free to move about freely from here. Your prompts can start with you waking alone or in the presence of others - whatever you’d like!

Your character will innately understand how to use time magic from this point forward. It will come naturally to them, like a skill they were born with.

CASTLE: OVERVIEW (p a s t)

The Scorching Isles is home to the Atirat, a people of sea-dwellers who have the ability to walk on land. (Think mermaids with the ability to shift back and forth between human and mermaid forms.) As such, much of the Scorching Isles is covered in large bodies of blue water and glistening pieces of ice to accommodate their lifestyle.

THE CASTLE, however, is what dominates the landscape and it's where the Shard-Bearers will be spending their time. The white castle with colorful glass windows is obscured by a thick layer of clouds and fog. Nearly every location on the island has a thin layer of fog that rolls through it, which gives the entire Island an inescapable chill. The castle has artfully built rooms with a CAVALCADE OF DECORATIVE ICE, lavish mirrors, and white plants accented with blue decorations. Several portions of the castle are submerged due to the aquatic nature of the native residents.

And everywhere you go, you find them - STATUESQUE BODIES FROZEN mid-movement. They are haunting reminders of the power in your Hourglass - the very real power to decide their fates.

The castle has many winding paths to explore, as castles often do. There are sleeping quarters, HALLWAYS, a wine cellar, and a few large rooms presumably for diplomatic affairs. Players can use these rooms at their own leisure for whatever purposes they see fit. (Exploration, combat, or supply gathering.)

However, many of these rooms will require some strategy to access their full potential! Atirat were much more comfortable being underwater than many Kenosians may be. Therefore, rooms of higher importance may be COMPLETELY SUBMERGED or require swimming through an underwater pathway to reach them. Very minimal supplies will be kept out in the open for all to reach. More desirable supplies - such as warm clothing, small weapons, treasure, and the like - will be located past or within one of these flooded areas.

Players may gather supplies within and preserve their Sand or use their Sand to make other rooms accessible and gather whatever lies within! The larger the asset you attempt to unfreeze, the more Sand it costs - and the more drained/vulnerable you will be as a consequence, so choose your path ahead wisely.

Currently, a pervasive fog is preventing you from wandering beyond the Castle's limits. Should you try to venture past it, your Sand will rapidly be stolen and you will find yourself suffering the same fate as the islanders if you don't move back to safety quickly... However, if you ask Mr. Tibbs what lays beyond the mist - he will tell you about the thriving farmland, the once-bustling village surrounding the castle, and the beautiful coral reefs beneath it. Sadly, they're beyond your reach - but maybe if the Bearers decide to unfreeze them when the week is up...

LIBRARY (s a f e z o n e)

The ROYAL LIBRARY - A treasure trove of knowledge, history, and glimpses of a fractured past scattered throughout. The lower floor of the Library is void of much reading material and contains several intricate-looking art pieces on decorative pedestals.

A spiral staircase dominates the center of the room, with its once delicate structure overtaken by sheets of formidable ice; it leads you toward the upper levels where a sea of books awaits. There are isles and isles of books, most perched on intricately carved shelves. Many books lay in piles or are discarded onto the floor, and scattered papers are common throughout.

Curious Kenosians may pick out books from the shelves and read on various topics, but players may also pass through this room on their way elsewhere. This area will function as a safe haven where violence and the taking of others' Sand is not allowed; do not disturb the books or Mr. Tibbs won’t be happy!

NOTES

Characters who wish to receive a book with lore specific to the island may comment [HERE]. You will be RNGed a book from a pre-written list of topics. The books may give you a deeper look into the island, its inhabitants, and its history! (Only 1 book per player! Please assume all other books they read are about commonly-available topics.)

THE EATING PARLOR (p a s t)

There are no basic amenities on the island. No hot water, no warm beds, and no salacious magazines (that you know of. heh heh). That would make the Eating Parlour a wise stop for anyone. After all, this could be the perfect chance to procure some provisions!

The EATING PARLOUR has all the equipment one would need for meal preparation. Dried plants hang from the ceiling, and the walls are lined with mason jars filled with every strange manner of presumably edible thing (Is that a head over there? Hmm… maybe you should check).

The parlour also comes with a garden under a massive windowed dome so that the inhabitants could have fresh produce at hand. Many plants have withered, but there are some salvageable plants if you know how to look for them. But beware… Some of the plants have a strange blue glow. These plants can spell potential disaster.

If someone should make contact with these glowing plants, they will crumble into glass shards - glass that will quickly burrow its way under the skin and curse that person with Blight. Blight will make all resources within that person's vicinity slowly age and eventually crumble to dust. (Which I relate to on a personal level tbh.) Iconoclasts will be immune to its effects.

NOTES

Please see the "Blight" section below for more information on its effects.

TREASURE ROOM (f u t u r e)

Faint singing can be heard coming from this room. Once you hear the song, it dulls your senses and leaves you in a haze. There is no stopping your feet from guiding you to it through the doors and into the Treasure room. The door slams shut at your back, sealed with a wall of ice and magic.

Players will find themselves lured to an icy chamber bordered by a ring of cold blue fire. There is a deep pond that surrounds the platform you’ve found yourself standing on. Beyond its glassy surface and crystal clear water, one can glimpse all manner of treasures - from crowns, jewels, ornate statues in various statues of repair, scepters, spears, and books that seem impervious to the water's cold chill.

As you come to your senses, you will find yourself frozen in place and at the mercy of a large statuesque being before you. This beautiful and horrifying figure in a perpetual song is the SIREN, the only Atirat you’ve seen in person. She measures nearly 20 feet (6 meters) from her head to the tip of her long-finned tail. She cradles an icy shard in her arms, singing to it as if it were a child.

She sits serenely in front of a large hourglass filled with white sand, which is bordered by a spear and a lance. Emblazoned in faint text at the base of where she sits reads: “The future lies in our hands.”

NOTES

Welcome to the Siren’s Chamber! Players must use their wit, charisma, or some good ol' fashioned elbow grease to escape the room or break the Siren’s magic. The Shard that the Siren holds contains dormant time magic that players may activate by using the Sand within their necklace. Players can access the future in 5-second intervals and use whatever they find in that time period to escape their predicament.

For example, if they activate the shard by using their time magic, that shard will begin to glow blue. The room around them will shift, and it could change to a point in the future where there is a sword nearby. If you can grab it, now you have a weapon! When the 5 seconds are up and time returns to the present, you will still have that weapon on your person. You may also try verbal communication if you’d like. If your character is someone who would try and talk their way out of a situation diplomatically, they may give it a try!

It is up to player discretion/creativity to think of a scenario you’d like. Each “future" does not have to be the same across player encounters! What one group experiences may be tailored to the player wants (because branching timelines exist). Let your imagination run free!

HALL OF MIRRORS (p r e s e n t)

Should you reach the rightmost wing of the massive castle Library, you will find a door hidden in the very back of one aisle against a wall; it looks as though the door used to be concealed by magicks that have since dissolved.

The stairwell leads down and into darkness. Once you reach the bottom, shimmering light cast from an unknown source beneath sheets of glistening ice will illuminate your new surroundings; you are in a maze of mirror-like ice. This labyrinth is silent save for the quiet creaking of shifting ice that may disquiet you and leave you uneasy regarding the stability of this area… but it holds beneath your feet.

Mr. Tibbs had told you that the “Kaleidoscope” - where your Sand is counted - rests through here, so eventually, you must brave the journey. Is it a trick of the light? Maybe the product of an especially active imagination…?

Did you just see one of your reflections move without you?

NOTES

Please refer to the OOC Summary for details on the Hall of Mirrors!

THE BLIGHT and TIME MECHANICS

BLIGHT

Blight is an infliction that will age supplies and infect people with a creeping disease that steals their Sand. For objects, this includes weapons, food, and items like cloth. It will take a few days to deteriorate things beyond use - so watching your supplies and acting accordingly is in your best interest. Generally, it will make it more difficult for PC's to get by given that their already scarce resources will dwindle and deteriorate - especially since it's 'contagious' through touch.

The Blight will not act quickly enough to severely hamper infected persons, but repeated exposure will cause effects to a person's body - notedly protruding VEINS in the face and extremities, a lower body temperature, and increased agitation. These effects start out mild and grow more severe with each 'dose.'

Characters must touch an object/person that is Blighted to become inflicted with Blight themselves. When that happens, it will become easily identifiable as Blighted from the faint blue, shimmering outline around the infected subject, as well as the WITHERED, FROSTBITTEN or ashy appearance it takes as it progresses.

However, there is one single perk with Blight. (Or is it a perk?) Players will feel reduced impact by the cold surroundings, making the climate around them somewhat more hospitable. Beware of falling victim to a chill you can't feel...

TIME

To use your Sand, each character is granted access to and innate knowledge of a spell they channel from their Shard that automatically manipulates their Hourglass. This allows the remote control of Sand (aka gathering and dispersing), as well as the ability to pull Fragments of time from Shards.

Fragments are literal pieces of you taken from your Shard. They manifest as memories or images displayed on little shards of broken glass (think of the memory being played out in real-time on the mirror's surface), and can be crushed to convert into Sand automatically, either voluntarily or by force. The only stipulation is that the parties must be close to one another, and the Fragment must be exchanged while both Bearers are still. This means someone has to give it to you, or you need to immobilize them before you take it - one way or another.

Once the Fragment is crushed, the memory and associated time of that person's life is lost and your character will suffer amnesia until the Oracle is claimed. How deep this goes is up to you; they could lose a large chunk of time - even all their memories surrounding a person or place for a big payload of Sand, or they could lose very little for a meager net gain.

Sand is automatically gathered or distributed by your Hourglass and added/subtracted to your running total. No need to micromanage. Convenient!

Please note that using Sand to unfreeze anything (resources, a door which can be then opened, etc) is an unpleasant experience. Each time you use Sand in this way, your character will be left feeling weakened and flu-like for an hour or two, which will leave them vulnerable. This effect stacks and scales up to outright KO-ing them for a few hours if they go crazy, so unfreezing too large of an area is off the table!

NOTES

• An OOC POST will be coming shortly explaining how Sand is going to be tallied and the Oracle claimed.
• Should your character attempt to unfreeze any NPC's, please respond [HERE]. NOTE: unfreezing NPC's may result in physical violence with CW's for severe mental instability/illness and a potential reference to self-harm.
• HAVE FUN!!!

CODING

Comments

[appeale]

[ despite her own talent for performance, Rudbeckia is utterly hopeless at reading others for any emotion besides those in the realm of hostility, and so she finds herself puzzling over Gu Yun's intentions as she follows his lead through the maze. the contrast between his demeanour and his tone doesn't escape her; it's the motivation she wonders at. is he asking this unimportant question to put her at ease, or because he truly doesn't care about their surroundings? is it just confidence, or is it deliberate façade?

either one seems dangerous for her. ]

Not that I'm familiar with. [ it's genuinely difficult for her to give a certain answer—worldbuilding was never the novel's strong suit, whether she was reading it or living it. for all she knows, there were people throwing fireballs on the other end of the continent, and she simply didn't hear about it in the three years she spent as Ruby. ] Where I'm from, the only magic that people can use is holy power, and only paladins or priests learn it.

[ she talks about it in the vapid, airy tone of voice one would expect of a princess who has never had to care about such things. ]

I suppose demonic monsters would be considered magical too, in a different—... [ a frown comes over her expression and her head whips around. ugh, the mirrors. but: ] Did you hear something, signore?

[ the sound seemed barely more than an unintelligible whisper; there's every possibility it was only the ice. it had felt familiar, nevertheless. ]

[liuli]

[ this tag made me feel very ic thank you

gu yun makes a thoughtful noise in answer as the young lady answers him. he walks at a slow, easy pace, making sure ruby can keep up - ever the gentleman, though perhaps part of it is because he's on guard with the labyrinth around them. though, when she says something about the 'holy power', his nose wrinkles, and he snorts. ]

Of course. [ maybe it's fake. it's probably smoke and mirrors. if the western catholics had superpowers they still wouldn't be able to defeat great liang in his incredibly biased opinion. if he had anything else to say, though, it gets cut off as ruby's head whips up.

they round a corner at that same easy pace, and gu yun... well, he doesn't hear anything, mostly because his hearing is not really that good at the moment - the red mark on his cheek is a faded pink, currently - but, even if it was just the maze's strange ice floors, he's on guard anyway. he's feeling, more like. reading the movements of the wind, the change of smell around them, paying close attention with his incredibly well honed other senses. ]

It may have been the ice. [ he says this very calmly, though he does let his eyes flick across the mirrors, watching again for that strange flicker of black among blond. the hand on the mirror doesn't leave it, for now, navigating their way through. ] Stay close, miss.

[ he has kept it so ruby is a bit further from the mirror's surface than he is, after all. protective. ]

[appeale]

Ah—yes, sir.

[ she wonders how quickly he'll abandon her, if something does go wrong.

Ruby is on high alert now too, her eyes darting about without pause and her head on a swivel, as any self-preserving prey animal would do. although she can't fight, she knows that she can at least be useful as a second pair of eyes. it's not that she trusts Gu Yun to guide her, even as she follows him close with a hand on his arm, but that the surrounding danger is more severe at the moment than any threat he seems to pose.

just as that thought crosses her mind, a voice speaks up as though to chide her: ]

He's gonna kill you, Ruby.

[ the mirror that spoke shows Rudbeckia wearing a monochrome dress like a priest's garb and a blank expression, something haunted in the intensity of her stare. swathed in layers of fabric, her petite frame looks more childlike, even though she's clearly the same age as the Ruby that stands at Gu Yun's side, her fingers clutching his arm white-knuckled. she doesn't say anything in response to her reflection. it speaks again, its voice sullen: ]

You know he will, so why are you being such an idiot?

[ the real Ruby is frozen in place, like the ice has crept over her too. Hah... What a cliché trope. ]

[liuli]

[ ruby won't know it, but a second pair of eyes is pretty useful here. gu yun stays silent, the light and easy mannerism fading as he walks them forward; his well honed soldiers reflexes shine here, straight backed and prepared for the worst.

right now, he doesn't reach for the sword at his waist. they've been fighting doppelgangers, so far - his own appeared in a mirror just before, and even just a cursory look at ruby tells gu yun plenty. no matter what kind of girl she is, unless she whips out an impressive amount of martial arts skills, she's unarmed, and he's preparing moreso for the psychological than anything especially physical, and he's not wrong when the light female voice speaks up loud enough to be heard.

he turns his head to look briefly at the reflection. takes in her outfit - western - and cocks his head to the side.

his doppelganger reflection does the same, but it's the real gu yun who speaks - and all he does is scoff, lightly, dismissive. ]

Now, that's not very nice. [ ...it's curious, really. it's curious, because these reflections seem to be just that, reflections. something to be learned from. none of that thought process registers on gu yun's face, though; instead, he just lets the flippant remark by.

his own doppelganger puts his hand over ruby's white knuckled hand. curiously, his doppelganger is blindfolded, but it doesn't react much beyond that, just mouthing the words that gu yun does like a true reflection. ] Who put that sort of mentality in your head, the Westerners? I wouldn't trust a man with more hat than brains not to throw stones in glass houses. Or mirrors, so to speak.

[ gu yun glances down to the real girl, frozen at his side, and waits. patient, to let her pull herself together or react, or whatever she needs. ]

[appeale]

[ in a way, seeing her reflection move independently strikes Rudbeckia as more natural than when it follows her movements. it isn't her, after all. like this, it feels like the real Rudbeckia is talking to her, and she can imagine for a moment that she's still in the body she pictures for herself. none of that unsettles or frightens her. it's only the things it says, as it twirls its long golden hair around its finger, that leave her reeling. ]

More hat than... Ah. Do you mean my father? Well, he certainly didn't help.

[ its cold gaze slides off of Gu Yun, uninterested in him when its real target is cowering in his shadow. ]

That isn't... [ the girl beside Gu Yun makes to continue down the hall, pulling hard on his arm to urge him to follow. there's an anxious smile on her expression, but her pupils are trembling, eyes filled with fear. ] Signore, don't you think we should keep moving?

Oh, that was too bold. You're telling him what to do?

[ as if burned, Ruby releases her hold on Gu Yun's arm and stumbles back. that's right—she needs to be careful not to overstep even in a situation like this. she has to play dumb, she has to... what is she going to do? this stupid reflection just keeps talking and it's going to ruin her— ]

Everyone turns on you sooner or later. What are you going to do when this one gets sick of you? Just run away, Ruby.

[ in that moment, when she looks up at Gu Yun, it seems like she really might do just that. ]