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

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.

They don't. In fact, I did what I could to make the seal untraceable when it was still in my possession. A regrettable decision now, perhaps, but I have many of those under my belt. [ his body already makes him look continually haunted, but it's the look in his eyes as he says these words that really drives home just how much regret he's been living with daily since jade's death - given he was sworn to keep precisely that from happening ] Even if we took possession of the Seal, Kel'in'hrae would kill anyone or anything in his way to get his hands on it again. And even if he were stopped, it's likely by now that he's garnered disciples who would try to complete his work should he fail.

What is most important is to make certain that he does not learn what is required to complete the ritual to break it or get his hands on those things he would require for the ritual.

Edited 2015-03-16 05:12 (UTC)

[ anastacia's horror tho ] What is required for it? Are those things that we can get on our hands on before he does?

I imagine that if we were all to know, it would put all of us in danger of exposing that information to Blade as well. [ he gives wynn a look like THIS IS WHY YOU DIDN'T TELL YOUR BOYFRIEND ISNT IT ] Considering how many mind readers they seem to have in their employ, that's a dangerous game to play.

I bet I can name one. One they were willing to dig up a grave for.

Jesus Christ.

[Des rubs his head.] We can't always count on beating them to the punch on accident. Dumb luck got us this far, but it ain't gonna get us out of it.

[he opens his mouth to say something further and then shakes his head, changing his mind.]

If it's not safe for us to know what we're protecting, then we need to know how much they know. If they already are aware of some of the things required, apparently, then if we can prevent them from attaining those...

We have one key already and Jade's necklace is safe until I want to go get it. But... it's not like we can just call Keijen and be like, yo, bro, heard about your pops, sorry I ruined your chance to go home once already, but can you help me ruin your second chance too?

[ perhaps not the most helpful contribution, but the first part was! so it's a wash. ]

Discovering how much the enemy knows, and what we might do next will have to fall to after we prevent Blade from sending out his message to the masses. We need to focus on the task at hand, but I believed it was imperative for you all to realize the stakes of what we are up against now - and precisely how dangerous Blade is, to keep anyone from doing anything that might endanger the greater mission.

So don't be stupid, basically. [le sigh.]

[finnick looks around the table like "that's a lot to ask from some of us..." his gaze rests on archer for an extra moment too ngl.]

2/-

3/3

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/-

2/-

3/3

no subject

no subject

1/-

2/-

3/-

4/4

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject