knightsoflegend | briefing ♔ watch the fires rise under my skin

Entry tags:

briefing ♔ watch the fires rise under my skin | scorching my soul

♬ Dark Doo Wop - MS MR

WHO || Wynn, Failboat [Closed]
WHAT || Talisman Mission Briefing
WHERE || Knights HQ, the briefing room
WHEN || Feb 6th, shortly before 5pm [back dated]
HOW || Actionspam. Single thread, don't worry about maintaining tagging order.

Andres has been quite the distraction from the looming problem of what's to be done about Dimitris' compatriots in the cult of the Church of the Lord's Humanity. Having learned during the retaking of the Isle that the Church leader, Draken Crombe, has been impersonating NOVA Records mogul Chad Becksworth for years in order to gain access to the company's resources, keeping tabs on his movements has become even more pressing.

His next scheduled appearance? At the upcoming 2015 Grammy's. And considering that the Church was behind the disaster in New York last year, where hundreds of Shadowkind were brainwashed into committing suicide in the Hudson River, it's only logical that Wynn intends to send his own forces to attempt to avert any other large scale catastrophes.

But that's not all. There have been some further twists in the story, and it may be time for them all to come to light. To that end, Wynn has asked many of those involved with the mission to gather, whether they'll be sent to the awards show with the team or not.

He's asked Myrilandel and Violet to come before the others.*

*Everyone will be plurk alerted when it's time for the larger meeting. Please stand by for now.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ having heard this story twice already does not make it easier to listen to and vi cradles her belly protectively, even as a sneer darkens her features. ]

Keijen.

[ The flicker of fury on Buffy's face, for as unrestrained and violent as it is, lasts only a short moment. She smothers the flames of her rage, stifling them for a later day.

This, perhaps, was news that shouldn't have preceded a trip to see Blade, as there is now every chance that she will castrate Keijen "actual trash bag" Blade.

When she speaks, her voice is all tight, deliberate control. Very level. ]

What did he do to her?

[oh, was THIS what you were expecting des to get mad about?

Because he abruptly stands up and slams his palms on the table.] That motherfff-

[mercifully, he cuts himself off, because in this context perhaps not the correct insult to use. So he's just gonna stand there. Impotently. Nostrils flaring.]

This mean he's fair game for tearing out his rib cage if we get half a chance? Cause at this point he's really asking for it.

Ideally. However, Kel'in'hrae is also dangerously intelligent. His arrogance about his power is not misplaced. What's more, he knows how to surround himself with those who are just as powerful, and any attempt to destroy him as such will inevitably come with great costs. [ he turns to buffy, to finish explaining the rest of the story, however ] I am certain that you can imagine what he might have done in that position, and you'll forgive me for not wishing to speak aloud the blasphemies that befell my goddess.

The unexpected result, however, was that Sehanine fell with child, and decided, even in the midst of her divine rage upon returning to her immortal form, to keep it. To give birth to the child, and call it her own, and to keep the truth from her about who her monstrous father was.

That child, as you may have surmised, was Eterna Jade.

[INCOHERENT NOISES OF MURDEROUS RAGE.]

Bloody hell, we have to get Dumage out of there. [It comes out in a rush that almost surprises Spike. Dumage is a big girl. She can make her own choices. And if Keijen's touched her Spike's going to cut the bastard's hand off. He swallows, looking up, around the room until he meets Myri's eyes.] And Nadia.

[ Dread, horror, and disgust all well up in kind. For a moment, Buffy is sure she's going to throw up, bile sour in the back of her throat. Green eyes go out of focus as she reflects, pieces falling into place. The photographs from Vittorio's safe deposit box. Her hand covers her mouth, elbow propped on the table as she tries to swallow it all down.

Keijen Blade raped his own daughter, and everyone who knew was too busy believing her complicit in it to stop what was happening, to help her. It's like a punch in the gut, the air knocked out of her. Her sharp inhale shakes like a repressed sob, and she pulls her hand down her face, looking across the table to her best friend and uttering simply, ] Des.

[ And in that concerned syllable, she weaves a wealth of horrified understanding. It comes all at once, a wave: what Rafael will do when he finds out, what Des is no doubt considering in this precise moment, and what Buffy is surprised to find herself resolving to do about it. It doesn't just confirm that he's had the same snap realization that she did: it's simultaneously searching to find out if they should share with the others (or if it's, as it in all likelihood is, none of their business), or with Rafael himself when they find him. ]

[ having been burdened by this awful story for nearly six months, vi doesn't react as everyone else. she doesn't really even pay attention to it, her attention, from the beginning of the reveal of what happened to the moon goddess has been on kat (and to a lesser extent, elena).

it can't be easy to listen to for anyone, but it has to be that much worse for kat and her eyes drift to fred as if begging him to make sure she's okay because vi doesn't want to call her out in the middle of the briefing.

she should probably care about how the news hits faith and anastacia, too, but elena and kat are her babies. ]

[ kat does look disgusted and horrified, but fred's got a hand squeezing her shoulder and it seems to be enough to keep her from snapping anything out, beyond: ] And you're saying we can't just go murder him?

We'll certainly find a way to deal with Blade personally, in time. But there's more to Lazarus' tale, and we've had enough experiences with facing down Blade to know that we are not prepared to take him head on, just as he says.

Everyone has a weakness. It's our goal to discover his.

As Wynnefalshond says. There's more to the story.

Malaak'a escaped with the tome, and the knowledge he desired, but Sehanine knew what he had done, and was outraged by what had been done to her. She would not let it stand, would not let him bring his evil plan to fruition.

To that end, she gathered thirteen of the most powerful arcane spellcasters in the whole of Faerun, with the goal of enacting an extremely powerful, dangerous ritual: one that would seal Malaak'a away, onto his own plane, cutting him off from being able to make his way here, and allowing Sehanine to protect this world from his influence.

[ELENA AND KAT AREN'T THE ONLY ONE AT THIS TABLE WITH A HISTORY OF PROBLEMATIC CONSENT ISSUES but because finnick has shared this with literally one person and wouldn't talk about it anyway, he stares down at the table with a pale, distant expression while everyone else is hashing all that shit out.

when lazarus gets to his next chunk of exposition, he tries to poke back in by asking what seems like where this is going to him (wis 15)] Were you ...?

Edited 2015-03-16 03:48 (UTC)

[Buffy saying his name is about the only thing that calms Des down and he only manages to hold her gaze for a second before he turns away, kneading his fingers into his palm as he tries to work some of wrath out of his system.

There's still more to the story, after all. And even the irrational and utterly foolhardy Desmond Descant seems to realize that the fight against Blade won't be won using pure rage and a little hope.]

[Alainn is listening intently to Lazarus's tale, eyes glued to the elf as he speaks, so stunned by what she is hearing that she's rendered speechless. For one of the Goddesses that she had worshipped for longer than she could remember to be brought so low by the likes of Malaka and Keijen twists her stomach. Not knowing what to even think about all of this, let alone add to the commentary, has her staying quiet as everything unfolds, arms wrapped around her stomach as if holding herself in place.]

[As someone who knows Finnick's tragic backstory quite intimately, Myri squeezes the hand he slipped into hers and even reaches over with her free hand to hold on with both. She's not going to say anything to draw attention to it, but she wants him to know she's there.]

I was. [ ♬ blood - abandoned pools

he glances over at wynn, before staring down into his palm as he speaks. ] One of the thirteen assembled to answer the goddess' call.

While the ceremony itself was a success, and Malaak'a trapped as she had desired, the energies required for the spell were too powerful for our mortal frames. When he was sealed away, there was simultaneously a backlash of magic, one that burned twelve of the thirteen in our Circle alive, destroying them from the inside out.

My own fate was... unique. Rather than kill me, the magic reacted with my body in an unusual fashion. It burned out every drop of blood within my body, replacing it with the same energies.

They course through my veins to this day, sustaining themselves. The magic disintegrated not only my blood, but my heart as well. I was the only survivor, although it is difficult to say that I was left truly alive.

Edited 2015-03-16 04:12 (UTC)

[Well. That's horrifying.

Des runs a hand over his face and through his hair, red-faced, but calmer now.] So what exactly does that mean for you?

[are you a ticking timebomb of celestial magic???]

For one, it means that each time magic leaves this world, those energies must feed my body in order to keep me alive, weakening me for every year that passes in such a state. I imagine that I may not survive another such period. [ he doesn't sound like he has many feelings on that, one way or another though ] The ritual created a seal, one that was emblazoned with the names of those who had conjured it. It was too dangerous to keep that seal in Faerun, knowing that Kel'in'hrae would seek it, as well as any other followers of Malaak'a. And so Sehanine chose to send me to this world, with the seal, and the infant Eterna, to keep them safe from him.

And that seal was what you started the rumors of the Talisman about- to throw people off the scent.

[And that... explains so much.] I was so wrong about all of this. [He kneads the heel of his palm into his forehead.] The hourglass, Blade- it was never about some crapshoot for immortality. They're trying to release that god.

My hope had been that disguising its true nature would cause those who found themselves unable to 'activate' it to abandon it in frustration. There was no chance of their accidentally stumbling across the means to break the seal.

But I did not expect Kel'in'hrae to follow me into this world. Malaak'a must have shared the knowledge of how to do so with him before he was captured. He has access to the seal now, but still does not know how to break it.

That's why the Cult that he works beside pursued Eterna, I believe. They thought she would possess knowledge of how to break the seal. There must be some pieces that they are yet missing - and Kel'in'hrae likely has convinced these others that this is the way to grant them the "powers" of the "Talisman". Otherwise, I cannot imagine they would ever work to unleash the Nightmare God upon this world.

[ gar is just pale as a sheet over here ] T-that's why they spent so many resources attempting to take Jade. And she didn't even know anything. Sehanine saw to that, didn't she? Her memories...

And I imagine that destroying the Seal itself would be the worst possible thing we could do.

It can't be destroyed, it can only be broken and you are super right on the money because that would be 50 shades of bad news bears because Malaak'a would be here in all his glory. Which, for the record, would be bad. [ vi can't actually think of a word to describe how bad that would be. ] A shadow of his power almost killed us in New York. [ she huffs a distressed breath, fingers reaching up to tangle around the ring on the chain around her neck. it did kill someone. ] If Keijen manages to release his father... We'd probably be better off dead.

Not to point out the painstakingly obvious, but we really need to get that seal back. I don't supposed your ties to it give you magical, seal-detecting powers that'll help us track down where they're hiding it.

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