⏳ 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

[gravings]

[ Obligingly, the scythe doesn't say another word, but it does still cackle uproariously at Atsumu's expense. At least, until Atsumu gives it permission to speak again, at which point it mercifully stops... though there remains some laughter in its voice as it speaks. ]

You're askin' me? Well if there's anything I know about that idiot Gray, it's that she's a huge crybaby. So why don't you say something that'll get the tears flowing? Go on, I know you're a pro at saying whatever you want!

[ Meanwhile, the Grays continue to brawl it out. They've moved on to dramatically wrestling over the second scythe, completely heedless of the discussion going on in the background. ]

[settingup]

[ Ah... ]

That ain't fair!

[ It's kind of fair. He does just blurt out whatever the hell he wants, and has done next to nothing to consider Gray's feelings this entire time. Hell, he's so far into his own bullshit that he's learning this girl's name from a talking weapon literally right now.

He's also realizing he doesn't have much of a leg to stand on, so he's muttering the next part. ]

I never made her cry.

[ Probably. As far as he knows.

But fine, he fixes his attention onto the tussling Gray's, takes a deep breath and starts yelling with all the capacity his very large lungs have in them. In this room of mirrors that sound is really bouncing and echoing all over the place too, making his nice and hard to ignore. ]

Knock it off!

[gravings]

[ Well, that certainly gets Gray's attention. She spares a surprised glance at Atsumu, especially because with her enhanced hearing, it's a bit like she's a dog and he's shouting directly into her big old dog ears.

On the other hand, Doppelgray doesn't care about Atsumu and ignores him completely. So she takes advantage of the opening and headbutts Gray right in the side of her head, which resumes the scuffle.

The scythe in Atsumu's hands pipes up excitedly. ]

Yeah! There! The one with the bug-eyed expression, that's the one!

[settingup]

Yeah, that tracks...

[ Now that he's gotten a good look at which is which, it doesn't matter how much they want to try and card shuffle themselves about as they fight on the floor. Atsumu has exceptionally good eyes, and he's used to tracking fast moving objects flying around a court. He knows which one is the real Gray now, and he's quick to make his way over to the girls.

Gray is probably much, much stronger than Atsumu thanks to some extra boosts that no amount of weight training will ever grant him, but she's still small, and Atsumu is still regular people strong.

He doesn't think twice before he reaches out to grab the hood of the imposter Gray, yanking up with a lot of force to try and lift her off of the real deal. ]

[gravings]

[ Gray does indeed weigh a sack of rice and a half, and so does her doppelganger, so the imposter goes up easily in Atsumu's grip. It won't stop the doppelganger from thrashing around like a cat in a bag, but Gray wastes no time taking advantage of the assist. She grabs Add (the real one) and delivers a vicious arc of her scythe that eats the doppelganger from side to side — that falls short of cutting Atsumu, of course. As the bottom half of the doppelganger falls away, so does the rest of her in a shadowy crumble, disintegrating until there's nothing but dust in Atsumu's grasp. ]

[settingup]

[ Falling short still means getting close enough to get one last surprised yelp out of Atsumu as he drops the remaining bit of doppelgraynger before she disappears into dust. Wrinkling his nose he makes a flicking gesture with his fingers to try and fling off whatever small bit of mirror clone residue remains, before fixing Gray with a frown.

Part of it is just trying to make up for the fact that he did embarrassingly scream just a half a second ago, but he is serious right now. ]

Alright, now that the one that's tryin' to kill me is gone, would you just tell me already what the hell that was?

1/2

[gravings]

[ With the doppelganger officially gone, Gray straightens back into an approximation of her usual unassuming self, the difference being the oversized scythe settled comfortably against her shoulder. She blinks at Atsumu's outburst, searches her little brain for a clue, and comes up short. ]

I don't know. She just appeared...

[ And got the jump on Gray, resulting in Gray coming out the more abused of the two... not that the doppelganger is around to compare to anymore. ]

But thank you for helping.

[gravings]

[ At her shoulder, her scythe cackles merrily once more. ]

Ihihihi! Yeah, thanks, bro!

[settingup]

[ That one difference is pretty damn big though, and even if the scythe couldn't talk, it'd be hard for Atsumu to ignore someone tiny like Gray swinging that thing around.

But the thing is, that scythe absolutely can talk, and it makes Atsumu jolt again as it starts laughing in thanks. ]

Yeah, yeah whatever. If you can't answer whats with the murder version of you, at least tell me what's up with that guy.

[ He'll punctuate his point by jabbing his finger at the scythe. ]

[gravings]

[ Now that's a valid question if there ever was one. By partial way of answer, Gray allows the scythe to collapse in form; like a Michael Bay Holywood Robot, it disassembles itself, the parts floating in the air before coming together again to squish improbably into the form a tiny box with an elaborate face that suits tidily in Gray's upturned palm. The box grins up at Atsumu. ]

This is Add. I've had him since I was little. Um, it might take a while to explain everything about him, but I inherited him as a tool to help me fight ghosts.

[ Does that answer his questions or just raise more of them... Add pipes up, jumping raucously in Gray's hand. ]

She doesn't look like much, but she was the best gravekeeper in all of Britain!

[settingup]

[ It's... it's... shit, Atsumu is a simple, stupid boy, and it's actually kind of cool??

He'll die before he admits this to her.

Though he doesn't get to silently fume about Gray apparently having a cool (if not kind of mean) talking weapon, because-- say what now about ghosts? ]

Since when were you not normal?!

[ He should have figured this out already during the fight, but it's finally hitting him now that he's learning more about her past. He just thought she was a super backwards girl from some isolated village, not... Not whatever the hell gravekeeper means in this fantasy sounding version. ]

[gravings]

[ He probably meant that to be a rhetorical question(?), but as she has an actual answer for it, she takes it to be a strangely specific question instead. ]

Probably when I was about five...

[ But she opts not to volunteer any more information than that. ]

Is that a problem?

[ He's reacting a bit strangely... ]

[settingup]

[ Is it a problem? Maybe, but it's not Gray's problem, that's for sure. If there's any problem here is the fact that Atsumu continues to have it shoved aggressively in his face how outclassed he is here in this world of people with powers and bizarre backstories.

The tiny girl who weighs so little he was able to easily yank her (evil clone) into the air with one hand is some magic scythe wielding shepherd of the dead or some such thing.

He feels pathetic, but he'll eat his disgusting gym socks before admitting to that one. ]

Shoulda expected it considering everyone else here... But you gotta tell people things like this before now!

[ She doesn't, but he'll bluster to save face. ]

'Cause I wanna know who the hell is gonna be chargin' around at me with talkin' weapons.

[gravings]

Oh. Sorry for not telling you sooner...

[ Though even she thinks that's a bit of an unreasonable demand. ]

But now you know... so, um, do you want to look for the exit together? I don't know where that other me came from, so I don't know what else we might come across.

[settingup]

[ It's an entirely unreasonable demand, but he does simmer down some as Gray offers him that undeserved apology.

Besides, she's making a good point with that, and getting fussed about stupid things can wait until they're out of immediate danger. While the anger seems to seep out of him, there's still an air of wariness about him as he glances around the mirrored hall. ]

Yeah, this place gives me the creeps. Let's get the hell outta here.

[ And he's starting forward, in the direction he's relatively certain he didn't come from. ]