knightsoflegend | briefing ♔ when the beacon breaks what then

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briefing ♔ when the beacon breaks what then

♬ Disparate Youth - Sanctigold

WHO || Wynn, Anastacia O'Keefe, Faith O'Keefe, Alanna, Jordan Reeves, Jean Pierre Gadrout [Closed]
WHAT || Rescue Mission Briefing
WHERE || Knights HQ, the briefing room
WHEN || April 15th, shortly before 5pm [back dated]
HOW || Actionspam. Single thread, don't worry about maintaining tagging order.

Just as before, accessing the secret room where the Round Table is housed requires using the Knight's keycard to open the glass case beside the mural of the War in Heaven, located across from the ballroom entrance. Using the fire extinguisher as a lever to activate the "door" mechanism reveals the long torch-lit hall plastered in artwork depicting the Knight's history. The tenants of the Knighthood hang large and foreboding over the doors at the end of the hall, which stand open to reveal the brightly lit Round Table, and the majestic crystalline dragon statue presiding over it.

Come in, find a seat, meet your teammates if you haven't already. Anastacia and Faith are already here, and the former looks hella uncertain.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Two sets of footsteps in the hall outside of the Round Table Room precede two sets of voices, one Jordan's deep timbre, the other quieter and foreign to the castle.

"We're almost there, but we'd better hurry or we'll be late." [Jordan sounds very concerned that they'd be the last to arrive, and by the slight frustration in his tone he had said as much before.]

"Whatsss the deal with all the religiousss ssshit? Sssomeonesss got a boner for metaphorical art featuring good and evil." [And with that in walk Jordan and this fucker, wearing a tight black tee-shirt and jeans, cigarette tucked behind his ear.

Jordan's eyes sweep the three women already gathered, settling on Faith for just a moment before falling, grimacing at JeanPierre's words. JeanPierre, on the other hand, lights up as he takes in the Round Table Room, focusing first on the huge fucking crystal dragon in the middle of the table, a grin crawling up the side of his lips. He looks first at Alanna, then Faith, a slight sign of recognition flickering there before he notices Anastacia, eyes lighting with pleasure as his grin widens.]

Anassstacia, how good to sssee you again. [The extended 'sss's don't really sound like a lisp but more reminiscent of a snake's soft hiss.]

"I knew we'd be late" [ Jordan grumbles, heading for an empty chair.]

You're not late. Wynn hasn't come out with it yet, and we won't be properly started until he's here.

[ Alanna chooses to sit forward to assuage Jordan, turning her face towards him but flicking her eyes towards JeanPierre. ]

Who's this?

[Jordan takes his seat, casting a grateful look at Alanna as he answers- "JeanPierre Gadrout. Fiona's step-dad." He just sounds s-so impressed >.<

In the meantime JeanPierre makes his way over to Anastacia, holding his hand out to her in greeting.] You're looking asss beautiful asss ever, Anassstacia.

[ i can't believe she fucking crit failed, what just happened. why this.

she reaches out to delicately take his hand, smiling fully in spite of herself, even as she shakes her head slightly, the tiniest twinge of a blush in her cheeks. ] Good to see you too, JeanPierre.

I'll look better once we find Fiona and the others.

[ faith notices that weirdness, and is just generally like wtf is happening over here, so she's gonna speak up, looking between jp and jordan, like either one of y'all can answer this ] Is he going to help us look for her?

[Smooth as butter he turns her hand over, placing a lingering kiss it's the back, never breaking eye contact. His grin widens as he notices that tiny blush, obviously thinking of the same memory that brought it to her cheek (Wis 17). Pulling away with a wink he releases her hand, answering Anastacia.] You could never look anything but radiant, Ana.

[Turning in Faith's direction as he gives her a once-over, confusion and a faint hint of recognition flickering in his gaze.] Yesss, I'm going to help look for her, ssshe'sss my daughter.

[ Alanna looks amidst them for a moment, confused. ]

Fiona was amongst those who went missing?

[ woW CONCERN. ]

What exactly transpired on this mission of yours, Ana?

[ her eyes cast down, a shadow of anxiety across her features now. ] We were sent to a small town in Russia that had fallen through the Veil many years ago, had remained more or less isolationist, preferring to keep the traditional values of the world they'd hailed from. We were originally hired by the parents of a woman named Anya, who was from this world, and had married the baron of the town - Stepan Boroi. Her parents were concerned because she had dropped contact after expressing increased concern over Stepan's behavior. She'd called him paranoid, been worried for their new child.

When we arrived in the town, we discovered that some kind of unusual illness had broken out, that the locals were calling tallowthroat. It had affected even the captain of the village watch, and people were quick to blame it on the small population of fetchlings who were often discriminated against in the city. We managed to save some of those fetchlings from an angry mob, and they told us that Stepan had inherited the title of baron when his father and two older brothers all died within the same year.

Some of the team went to speak to the Baron and his wife, found him twisted with paranoia and fear about a fetchling uprising and the disease in town. They also noted that he had no shadow.

It turned out that the Baron had discovered an artifact in his ancient home, called a Midnight Mirror. [ she looks around, frowning ] I don't know how familiar you all are with the goddess known as the Maiden of Pain, but these mirrors are magical prisons used by her church to punish those who offend it. They're extraplanar prisons that host a connection to the Shadow plane, trapping the victims there, where they never age, and can be tormented forever.

This mirror hosted a prisoner from many years ago, one who had attempted to lead a fetchling uprising in the town hundreds of years before. The prisoner struck a deal with Stepan - the mirror would allow them to switch places by touching hands through it, and Nicasor, the prisoner, could inhabit Stepan's body for a year at a time, gaining some small measure of freedom. In return, he assured that Stepan would become Baron, helping trap his brothers in the mirror itself.

Stepan grew to regret his decision after marrying Anya and having a child, decided he would not fulfill his end of the bargain when the next time arrived to do so - every decade, they had agreed to exchange for one year. When he did not, Shadow material began leaking from the broken mirror, causing the illness.

We agreed to enter the mirror and destroy it from the inside out, the only way to save the town and free Stepan of his bargain. That's when... things took a turn.

Goddess. [ Alanna whispers her breathless horror at this evil mirror business, making the Tortallan sign against evil. ] Not a good turn, I'd wager.

We weren't certain that we could trust Stepan. He told us that to destroy the Mirror, we'd have to go inside it and find the form that its Heart had taken, use a shard of the Mirror itself to destroy it.

In case it was a trap, and he intended to make us all prisoners within the cursed object, they left me outside with the Baron. Together we waited for them to come back. He claimed that when the Mirror was destroyed, everything that was left alive inside it would be shunted out.

I take this briefing to mean that wasn't what happened. If they weren't freed from it, then ... then precisely where did they go?

That's what we're here to discover. [ wynn walks in from the hallway, responding to her question with grim calm. ] There are only two possibilities, if what Stepan Boroi claimed about the Mirror can be trusted.

Either none of the team was left alive when the Heart was destroyed, or they were somehow no longer in the pocket dimension. Considering there were no other means to travel from it back to the Material plane, that would imply that they had instead found means to travel via its tenuous ties to the greater Shadow plane.

Well, they can't all have died, so it has to be that second one. [ faith sounds ardently firm on that point ]

[ Alanna looks between the faces of these knights' loved ones with heavy uncertainty, fixing finally on Faith. She doesn't want to be the one to suggest it, but appears she may have to. ]

Is that hope or reason? Believe you me, I've every desire for the alternative as well, it'd mean they might still be recovered, but if you've got information to narrow the possibility that they may already be dead, I'd like to hear it.

[ anastacia casts a look over towards wynn, before her eyes drag down towards the table as she recounts the rest ] While they might not have come out of the mirror, some people did. A shae named Nicasor - the same one who had enacted the deal with Stepan Boroi and lead an uprising centuries before - was alive and well, as well as his brother Atamin and Atamin's daughter, Manar. Nicasor's uncle, Corys, lived there as well, and finally the lone descendant of Stepan's older brother, Iozif: an 8 year old son named Sorin, an illegitimate half-fetchling child. An entire family, that I believe he was hoping to free from the mirror by using his deal with Stepan to lure more humans in to swap with them - but permanently.

Nicasor... immediately attacked Stepan when he emerged, blaming him for reneging on their agreement. I tried to intercede, but I wasn't able to stop him before he slew the Baron. I convinced him to spare me, told him that the boy, Sorin, held a claim to the title of baron in that land, that we had to keep the boy safe at all costs.

Nicasor was suspicious of me because, he said, there had been intruders in his home, ones who he thought Stepan had sent in to kill him. I pressed him for anything he knew of them, but what he implied was that he would have killed them himself if given the chance. However, he sensed that they had 'fled' the House as it was falling apart.

He might have been lying, attempting to conceal his own part in their deaths, but there was so much pride in him that I can't imagine him doing anything less than bragging openly about it if he had bested them.

It sounds as though Nicasor will be our best avenue for learning more of this mirror and where they might have fled to. Do you know what's become of him since he was freed?

Still in Karpad, I believe. He expressed an interest in trying to lead the fetchlings who live there. I suspect he intends to start another uprising, if given half the chance. He was very charismatic. It's likely only a matter of time and resources. He'll have to be stopped.

[ she frowns, shaking her head ] But to be honest, it sounded like he didn't have any more idea about where they had gone than I did. He was a prisoner of the mirror, not the creator of it.

We [ she glances at wynn ] believe that our only hope lies in traveling to the only place they could have fled to: the Shadow plane, to use a spell that can discern their location. It won't work from plane to plane.

Yeah, but we can't just plane-hop either. Unless Mom's called in a favor with one of my grandmas or something.

There is another way.

Sir O'Keefe and Sir Alanna, you were both part of a team that uncovered a portal to the Shadow realm, located in Australia.

That portal may now be our only chance to save these Knights.

You want us to use the dark portal that'd been sucking the life out of most everyone who touched it?

[ She pulls a face. ]

Great Mithros, I hope you've a plan B for when it licks our bones clean.

I've poured considerable investment into studying the information recorded about the portal you discovered since then. It seems that anyone possessing some degree of magic or psionic ability should be able to pass through the portal without difficulty.

Oh, it's "should," then, is it? I'm reassured.

[ Despite her sour expression, she's very clearly resigned to this task. ]

That's probably the least of our worries. The Shadow plane belongs to Shar, one of the darkest goddesses of them all. If we attract too much attention to ourselves there, she'll know it.

And killing us for it would be a generous act on her part.

[ Sigh. ]

Very well. When do we leave?

[While everyone's been talking JeanPierre has been watching everything with a very attentive eye, giving Wynn a once-over as he enters in obvious interest.

Jordan, on the other hand, has had his eyes closed, hands placed on either side of the table in front of him. His bands are barely visible above his shirtsleeves, but after a few moments a low, barely audible humming is heard originating from them. Frustration crosses his features, and as Alanna poses her question his eyes snap open, hands balling into fists atop the table.]

I can't feel her. I can't find where she is. [His voice is frustrated, but beneath that is a very clear note of worry.]

I can't tell if she's alive.

Can you normally? [ faith looks over at him, interested and concerned. ] Sense her, or whatever?

What does it mean that you can't? Has something like that ever happened before?

[His eyes snap to Faith for a moment, the look in them bordering on panic. He keeps his eyes locked on hers and after a moment he seems more anchored, less at risk of having a panic attack.]

Yeah, I've always been able to sense her presence, no matter where she is. All of my siblings and I can sense where the others are, any of Jareth's children have this ability. [he tears his gaze from Faith, addressing Alanna as his gaze sweeps to JeanPierre.]

I don't know what it means, that I can't feel her. I don't know if I'm simply being blocked, or if... But no, this hasn't happened before. From the day she was born I've always known where she was.

There's a chance that it doesn't mean the worst. That her position on another plane accounts for the severing of your connection - and that it can be resumed if you find yourself on the same plane as she once more. If so, you may be able to circumvent using a spell to find them, following Sir Reeves' connection instead, and avoiding drawing undue attention to yourselves.

Assuming that arriving on her plane alone isn't enough to draw her attention. So we know how to get in: how do we get all of them back out? Unless I'm too assume everyone on this missing team possesses magic.

Presuming another way out is not discovered while you are there, I can send along various artifacts that will grant the wielder certain spell-like abilities.

And we'll hope that's enough for the portal. [ Oh boy. She rubs a hand over the side of her face and nods. ] We'll do our best to find another way out, then.

None of this is ideal, I recognize. This mission is asking each of you to go far above and beyond any call of duty.

If anyone wishes to back out now, no one will think any the less of you for doing so.

Certainly not. If they're alive, I intend to recover them.

[ Though she looks around the rest of the table because she ain't speaking for anybody else, and it is quite the daunting task. ]

Are you kidding? I'd go even if I had to go alone.

We'll bring them back. I was their team leader... It's my fault they're there to begin.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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