andres ♔ but life is for living

[nosdacariad]

♬ everything's not lost - coldplay

WHO || Everyone
WHAT || With Andres Isle reclaimed, the Knights deal with the aftermath of their battle to save its people
WHERE || Andres Isle, and various
WHEN || September 20th, 2014 - October 20th, 2014 [backdated]
HOW || Actionspam

When the sun rises on Andres Isle the next morning, and the smoke and rubble clears, it is impossible to call the battle anything less than a victory, in terms of freeing the people from Sarandis' hateful regime.  

But all victories come with their costs.

Sir Zatara's team easily accomplished their goal, shutting down the power station that allowed Sir Trinall's team to wrest control of Isle communications, although Emma Swan was grievously injured in the process and Faye Chamberlain found herself facing an unexpected temptation when she got her hands on Jordan Reeves' genie bottle.  Sir Wellington and Carpenter led an assault on the prison base, that succeeded in freeing all of the captured Shadowkind and putting a halt to the hideous experimentation going on there - at the cost of Sir Maxwell Briggard's life.   (And Nathan Young's... but he got better.  Twice.)   Even Myrilandel's familiar, Amaranth, was found, but when Lan turned violent on a bank of computers in a fit of hatred for the machines and all they represented, a targeting system was activated that released all the mind-controlled Shadowkind hybrids from the facility, on a dread path of destruction for the castle, ready to kill anything in their path.

Meanwhile, Sir O'Rourke's team had managed to locate the love potion that Dimitris Sarandis was using to control Kat Samcelot's behavior, and made it impossible for the next dose to be administered on time.  Sir Hathaway's team likewise made it into the castle, after following a set of clues that indicated Sir Elena Gilbert and the doppelganger Kyp had killed a guard and stolen their identity, heading into the palace proper.  Eavesdropping within its walls, they learned that the Prime Minister had been shot, and that the woman responsible was being held in a tower.  This, however, proved to be a cruel trick of Dimitris' ally, the powerful psion known as the Mind Master.  Forcing Elena to shapeshift into Dimitris, she mentally dominated Elena, and made her sit outside the empty tower cell, where Rose, Will, and Dean found her.  Having been approached by Kyp, who had been separated from Elena and feared for her life, a grudging alliance was formed, and the doppelganger approached "Dimitris" alone.  Despite her attempt to drop hints to her real identity, the situation escalated - until the Mind Master made Elena wrest Kyp's gun from him, and shoot him right between the eyes.   

In the meantime, Sir Yassin's team had blown an entrance for Prince Marcus Andres to lead his group into the castle through the tunnels below it.  Dimitris had, however, expected something like this, and filled the tunnels with all manner of monster and creation designed to stop them.   With exceptional teamwork, they bypassed all threats and made it within, where they were shocked to discover the real Chad Becksworth was in fact a prisoner here, and that Draken Crombe, leader of the Church of the Lord's Humanity had been impersonating him with the aid of the Mind Master, for access to NOVA Records' resources, for years.  They also discovered the bones of former Dragon's Claw Sir Ellison, Tia's father, and helped lay his spirit to final rest.

Knights around the Island struggled to halt the hybrid creatures from charging into the palace and ruining the internal team's chance to save Kat and Thomas and stop Dimitris.  Wynn led his own team to hold the line between the forest and the castle, but the brutal creatures they faced were overwhelming, and even with back-up arriving, creatures broke through.  Wynn sent Sir La Krail and Francesca, whose team had secured the guardhouse, to stop several driders who had passed, while he chased down a chemical golem that crashed right through the palace doors.

Dimitris had already sprung his trap, however, sealing Marcus and friends in a room below the palace pumped with poisonous gas, while he asked Kat Samcelot for her hand in marriage on a screen for them to watch.  At that moment, however, the love potion wore off, and she stabbed him in the dick, and helped free the others below.  Myri teleported several of the Knights up to the main floor to save Kat, who faced the guards alone and weaponless, but the arrival of the chemical golem provided enough of a distraction for Dimitris to make a break for the throne room.

Elsewhere on the Isle, Sir Koraith's team had been gathering allies among the Shadow Village, to face an attack that  they had been warned about, by soldiers seeking the location of Rocket, who had escaped the Shadow prison after attempting to assassinate the Prime Minister.  Koraith led those who could not fight towards the boats, while the others remained to hold the line and take out not only the soldiers, but also the clockwork creations called nimblewrights, robots whose construction Failboat had learned was based on some kind of demonic creature held in Dimitris' basement.   The battle was brutal, and Sir Riddick fell to the clockwork soldiers' assault.  The fate of Sir Jaina Solo and a Shadowkind villager named Indra Crestrage remains unknown, as they were also grievously injured in the assault.

Sir Edain's team had secured various boats to transport villagers off the Isle, but also discovered a sinister shack where body parts were created up for export to Japan.  In the battle that followed to hold the docks, Hook lost his entire arm, but managed to hold onto his life.

Back in the palace, several Knights joined Wynn in taking down the chemical golem, as Marcus and company moved to confront Dimitris and the Mind Master in the throne room.  The Prime Minister was unrepentant for his crimes, and revealed that after capturing Kat, he had had the Dragon's Claw Thomas Bancroft killed, dumping his body off a balcony for them to see.  Enraged, Kat ran to attack Dimitris, and was nearly killed by his bodyguard, Asha, but Fred Jr. intervened, sacrificing himself to save her.  Des murdered Asha instantly, while the Mind Master teleported herself and Dimitris away, leaving the guards willing to surrender, and the Knights frustrated by the hollow victory.

A search of the Isle revealed no trace of where the two had gone, but it also meant that Andres was free of Sarandis' influence.  Sir Banks' team had managed to gather all the wealthy human elite of the Island together inside a country club under the guise of a gas leak, and when Emma Frost appealed to the humanity of Sergeant Alastair Stone, a local police officer, he assisted them in routing out potential supporters of Dimitris, and separating them from the others, so that they might be shown the truth about what had been happening on the Island, right underneath their noses, in the form of a video of the prison laboratory provided by Logan and Nathan.
 
Most of the natives were shocked by what they saw, but had already been distrustful of Sarandis' true motives.  Hearing that the true heir to the throne had returned has given the people of Andres a real sense of hope that things can change, but the road will not be an easy one.

Rather than pull out and head home the next day, Wynn has asked as many Knights as possible to remain and help with reconstruction.  There are families to reunite, injured to tend to, homes to rebuild, a palace to remodel, and much more.  This post is for things following directly in the aftermath of the Battle for Andres, especially for things happening on the Island itself.  More posts will go up in the near future to backdate less immediate events.  Characters are free to go back and forth to the castle as they please, but also have accommodations provided in the city or palace on Andres Isle.

Comments

[arrested]

[ When Alisha and Faye first met it had hardly been a big welcoming chat. Hardly even met. But still, she doesn't really know a huge amount of people here and it doesn't hurt to try and know one or two more. After all, she used to be popular ]

Faye, right?

[reallywicked]

Turning at the sound of her name, Faye raises an eyebrow at Alisha whens he approaches.

"You survived? Color me surprised." She does seem slightly pleased by it, but maybe that's just the teasing smirk on her face.

[arrested]

"Looks that way, doesn't it. You didn't get yourself killed either then."

She pauses a moment.

"I suppose that's good." She wouldn't want Lila to be upset over a dead friend after all. Yeah, that's it.

[reallywicked]

"Me? Oh, I'm fine. Same can't be said for all the shut that came after us. But I got to try out some new spells, so everyone wins." Except the dead things. They don't really win.

[arrested]

"Everyone wins? Not sure that's quite how war works, you know." Really, are you for real, Faye? Alisha can't quite yet work out how she feels. Maybe she likes this girl, or maybe she's just loopy.

[reallywicked]

"Fine. Everyone who matters." She rolls her eyes but at least looks a little amused. "So what's your deal anyway? Mage? Cleric? Or are you one of the boring ones without powers?"

[arrested]

"I've got a power," she rebuffs like fuck you you have no idea.

"But I'm not a madge or whatever you called it. I'm not anything weird."

[reallywicked]

Faye bristles because she is a magic user and doesn't appreciate being called weird. Still, she's more interested in the first part.

"What kind of power?"

[arrested]

She thinks about it at first, not quite sure if she should be bothering to tell her, but then she shrugs. Fine, why not.

"I can see through peoples eyes."

[reallywicked]

"How's that work? Can you just do it whenever you want?" There a slight worry to her tone. She's been doing things and having conversations that she doesn't exactly want other people to know about.

[arrested]

"I dunno, it just does. And yeah, pretty much. Whenever and whoever. I don't do it much, don't really have the need to."

She gives her something of a dubious look, picking up on the tone (sense motive 16).

"Why, you worried I'm going to look at you?"

[reallywicked]

"Maybe." She half admits with a shrug. "I would if I were you. I'd check to see what everyone was doing."

But Faye's sort of not a very good person. Oops.

[arrested]

"Yeah well maybe I did at first," she admits. "But people are boring as fuck wankers, trust me. I don't give a shit. Why, you got someone you want to spy on?"

[reallywicked]

"Not currently, but give me an hour and I'm sure I can think of something." Because that is a power that Faye thinks is pretty awesome. "Were you born with it?"

[arrested]

Well that sort of makes her laugh a bit. Okay Faye, maybe she's warming to you.

"Nah there was this storm and it gave loads of people all these powers. Well, not this one, but a different one. This one's like a replacement."

[reallywicked]

She tilts her head slightly to one side. "Replacement? So you had something else before?" She's definitely interested in that story.

[arrested]

"Yeah." She looks ever so slightly shifty. "If I tell you, you're not going to be a bitch about it, right?"

[reallywicked]

"Of course not." She smiles as she lies through her teeth (bluff 19). Of course Faye will be a bitch. It's her default setting.

[arrested]

As good as a lie as it was, Alisha somehow sees right through it (sense motive (?) nat 20). She doesn't really seem put off by it though, rather smirking a bit.

"People used to want to shag me when they touched me. Like, it made them want to shag me."

[reallywicked]

Faye's face scrunches in confusion. "Uh, that's not a power. That's hormones." She doesn't quite get the extent that Alisha is talking about here.

[arrested]

"No it's fucking not. I'm not talking like fancy a shag here, I'm on about proper weird shit. Like if I still had that power and grabbed your hand, right? You'd be ripping my clothes off and going full lesbian."

[reallywicked]

She looks as though she's trying to determine if Alisha is full of shit. "So why don't you have it anymore then?"

[arrested]

"I sold it. It was bullshit." She gives her a look.

"You'd have to be some twisted rapist sort of fuck to want a power like that."

[reallywicked]

"Oh, I don't know. If you could learn to control it, I can see it coming in handy. I've found that people will do just about anything for you if they think you'll let them in your pants."

[arrested]

"This wasn't the sort of shit you could control, and it wasn't like... made people fancy me, it was like whip their dick out right there sort of thing. I couldn't even touch my Mum."

Really, imagine that one for a moment. It isn't nice.

"People usually want to get in my pants anyway. Trust me, it's way different."