hadriel_logs | Event Log: Fadeout

Entry tags:

Event Log: Fadeout

Who: Everyone participating in the event!
What: The event log for the Fadeout event!
Where: All around the city
When: November 15th-November 25th
Warnings: None!

The morning of November the 15th seems rather normal- that is, if you can avoid the glowing cracks in the fabric of reality tucked away among various streets. Still, they don't really seem to be doing much of anything and you can't quite see through them, so maybe they're decoration? This wouldn't be the first time the gods pulled some weird shit to shake things up around here.

By midafternoon, however, something changes. Cecily, in all her wisdom, decides to attempt to dispel one of these rifts, and the resulting shockwave sends tremors through the city. Tears throughout Hadriel open wider and allow for various demons to burst through and terrorize the various citizens. Demons will be tearing through in all corners of the city, though you can choose to avoid them if you like.

Look out for Pride and Rage demons, who attempt to brute force their way to you and feed off of your anger, steel yourselves against Despair and Fear demons who grow stronger as you give up hope, and definitely cross the street to avoid the Desire demons, who can take either male or female forms and will offer you everything you want if you just let them in.

Demons will either focus on attacking you or tempting you by taking advantage of and feeding off of your basic emotions. Agreeing to let a demon help you and mentally folding to it generally means that the demon will begin to possess you and start calling the shots- often using you as a vessel to hurt others and sow discord. If you happen to have any sort of magical abilities, extended possession can lead toward becoming an abomination after the corruption takes root.

So... you might want to avoid all of that. Luckily, there are some good things happening that can distract you- along with the demons, several nugs and fennec foxes will also pop up around the city, and if you don't want them to die a horrible death to a hungry demon, you might consider adopting them. In addition, you may find a random potion laying around- maybe this can help you fight off those demons, or maybe it'll make every nug in the city love you- or maybe it's secretly a jar of bees. Wouldn't be the first time you guys let bees in jars get a little out of hand.

► This log covers November 15th-November 25th.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you are murdered by a demon, become an abomination, turn your insides to sludge with a potion, or just throw yourself from a rooftop to end it all, please let us know here!

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He does not see or hear Maketh as herself -- not yet, while the demon's hold is still strong.

Henry furrows his brow, watching Alys turn, flummoxed by her words. Something is not right here.

"Feel you unwell? Take the rest of the day off. You have my permission."

It is a dismissal and a kindness both. Illness seems the most logical explanation for her strange bout.

With one last perplexed look, Henry turns back to Iamarl.

"We ought to find out for ourselves," he suggests, and strides forward.

Iamarl neatly falls into step with him. The distance is appropriate but nonetheless together. While he does want that information, with Iamarl close, he still thinks of sharing warmth.

Maketh narrows her eyes. This whole thing feels like a dream but somehow worse, edges bleeding into each other. Henry doesn't see her. He looked right at her, right in her eyes, and did not recognize her. Fear has done something to him. "Henry! Brother, you will look at me!"

That makes Henry turn, instinctively speaking.

"Maketh?"

Their surroundings blur for a moment in a disorientating lurch, before snapping back into focus. He doesn't know what that means or why there is a knot in his gut, a sharp edge of wrongness.

You do know, something inside him tells him. It rings of truth.

But he is drawn back into the moment when he sense Iamarl vanish in a familiar move -- shadow walking -- he makes a noise in his throat and heads straight for 'Alys', grabbing her arm in an iron grip while leaning past her side and reaching his free arm behind her.

He knocks back Iamarl's strike and grabs onto Iamarl's forearm too as Iamarl reappears. For a split second it feels uncomfortably hot in his grip.

"Wait," he demands harshly, eyes wild. He has absolutely no idea what is going on anymore.

"The Prince...!" Iamarl cries, a desperate plea in her violet eyes that takes him back to Troyes, "She is an assassin looking to pass for one of your attendants!"

Henry sucks in a sharp breath.

This shouldn't be happening. It's not a dream, not like the time Fear put her in a nightmare and watched things unfold piece by piece. This is different, worse somehow because she can see the truth of it around the edges where things aren't quite right. She goes rigid in Henry's grip but forces herself not to retaliate. He's too strong. It's been proven. But more than that she needs him to see.

Something is very wrong here.

"Henry," Maketh says, as calmly as she can. There is no time for fear. "I am your sister. This isn't real. It's a trick. We're in Hadriel and the gods are playing a game."

Henry hears her, and at last sees her.

The truth is a knife to the gut, sudden and shocking, and the shameful part is that even as it connects and sinks deep into his flesh, there is still a part of him tempted.

There is still a part of him that wants to give into the falsehood.

Henry doesn't, because the dishonour would leave him wretched. But there is an agony in watching the illusion run off like mud cleansed by water, in seeing Iamarl's visage melt away, knowing that his mind cannot conjure such clear, vivid imagery. All memories fade. All dreams are insubstantial.

How close he came to damning himself.

He staggers back as though he is wounded, releasing his grip on both Maketh and the desire demon. To think that his mind and heart were violated, their longings exposed and used as weapon against him--

Without Maketh--

Faced with reality again, and upon seeing its true form, he immediately looks for his sword and shield, too horrified and ashamed and angry for words.

The demon, meanwhile, gives Maketh a look of annoyance.

“Why did you interfere?”

Yet it then runs its hands sensually down its chest and its full mouth curls into an inviting smile, in an apparent change of heart.

“Oh, but you ache. Let's not be savages. I can fulfil your deepest desires.”

There's a flash of something in her mind, a promise, (a trick), like the Force but somehow different at the same time. This...thing is in her mind. Maketh can feel it at the edges, like the dream itself. Worming its way in, finding all the little nooks and secret places she's buried, or at least trying to. Only a little, though. She has a feeling Henry is still the target.

It's going to try again.

She draws her sword, shifting into a warning stance. There is only one objective now: protect Henry. Edward was here for a moment, not so long ago, and the pain of Iamarl's death not yet healed. He knew peace for a moment, at Edward's side and then in this dream-thing. It might have been false but it would have felt real. It would have felt like going home. Maketh knows very well what it feels like to want something - someone - so badly she thought she would die from the loss of them. The horrible pain of enduring it. Henry had felt at peace with Edward and Iamarl. Completed in all ways. And now this thing found a way inside his mind and twisted that memory.

She'll make it hurt for that.

Protect him. Kill that thing, soldier. Do your duty.

"You'll pay for that," Maketh promises, softly.

"How dull," the desire demon pouts, before purring, "If you insist."

With a wave of its arm, it casts horror upon her.

Once he has his sword and shield in his grip, Henry throws himself at the demon with gritted teeth, his temper raging, a scorching heat beneath his skin as he swings his sword. But then the demon turns her head and catches his eye, and it wears Iamarl's visage, her expression twisted in betrayal, which echoes in her voice.

"Why?!"

It's pure instinct that makes his pull the blow before it hits, stricken, as though he cannot bear to harm Iamarl's image. It takes a second for his mind to catch up, to shake his head and clear the illusion before it can take full hold again, and that gives it an opening.

The desire demon casts a cone of cold. It doesn't manage to freeze him solid, but he feels the painful burst of frost in his bones, making his limbs sluggish.

The attack slams into her skull, a blast of Force energy or something that feels exactly like a Force attack. Maketh staggers to her knees with a curse, clutching at her face. She can't see. Can't breathe. The air is thin and cold. Too many things are flying at her, she can't possibly--

No. Focus. Get up, soldier. Get up!

Maketh bares her teeth in a grimance and slashes hard at the demon's legs. If she can hamstring it, perhaps--

"Henry, kill it now!"

The desire demon cries out as Maketh's sword slices into its legs, and Henry forces his sluggish limbs to move. His own blade catches it in the side, but he is too slow to cut deep enough for a mortal blow as the desire demon floats back.

"I am trying!" Henry snarls in frustration as he attempts to pursue the demon, leading with his sword.

Warmth is slow to return to his body and that temporarily hampers his normal speed.

It might seem strange that with the small distance it wins the desire demon chooses to begin dancing seductively, but that is only until its curse hits.

Just when he thinks he is close enough to finish this fight once and for all, Henry is knocked off his feet by the demon's magic. For a moment his eyelids are unbearably heavy and his mind fogged, and he almost falls asleep -- but he cannot let it sink him back into his fancies, lest he never wake from them. He hits the flat of his sword against his thigh, letting the harmless burst of pain ground him, allowing him to shake off the drowsiness. He struggles back to his feet, ignoring the continued sting of the desire demon's curse -- magic has never had the power to stall him for long.

This time, he is determined, he will aim to strike off the demon's head.

This would be going much better if she'd thought to bring the gun with her. Maketh staggers to her feet, getting into stance. Henry is already moving in for the attack. He's stronger and has longer arms, he'll land a good blow. He has to land a good blow.

In the meantime, she'll back him up and try to keep the demon from casting another spell. Constant attacks, even if they were ineffective in the long run, had kept the Rebels and their Jedi from using their tricks. So she aims for the demon's face and swings hard.

Between them, it is enough: by avoiding Maketh's swing the desire demon is forced into Henry's range, distracted, and in a single, furious cut he takes off its head.

The demon's death, however, does nothing to quench Henry's blazing anger. He throws down his sword and shield.

"What is going on?"

His question is snapped, though the sharpness of his tone is directionless. He knows that he would have been lost without Maketh's intervention, but right now his temper spirals out of his control.

He managed to dress before the demon caught him in its illusion, but only in clothes. He tugs off his top made damp by frost and replaces it with a dry one before he stalks over to where he keeps his armour. He pulls his arming coat on roughly and quickly laces it up with trembling hands. His mail chausses are next, and once they're secured, he slips on his haurbergeon. After that is his red leather jupon, and he gives the side lacings a hard jerk before tying them.

His breathing is harsh.

Oh good, it died. Maketh drops her arm with a shuddering gasp. "You didn't report in with the guardsmen."

He wasn't there and so she went to fetch him.

Maketh rubs her eyes, trying to force the last remnants of unfriendly magic out of her head. It clings like dust. "A demon. There are others outside."

Henry bares his teeth in a wordless snarl at Maketh's news. Demons. God have mercy upon their souls.

Henry halts his task to resolutely cross himself, before he moves onto his plate armour. He affixes each piece securely with aggressive motions, wasting no time.

"We will annihilate every one of them!"

Maketh sheaths her sword with a groan, rubbing her face. Perhaps it's psychosomatic, but she can still feel the echos of the demon's magic bounding around in her skull. Weaker, shadows of the true power, but somehow still there, and persistent in its nagging. "We don't have the firepower and you know it."

Her tone is tired, though firm. One of them has to be the voice of reason. Usually it's Henry. "We're going to do this systematically."

"It matters not if I must end their kind on my sword one by one," Henry viciously states as he tugs the straps of his cuisses tight and buckles them, "I will not suffer their foul presence to continue!"

If one preyed on his weakness, tempted him to the edge of ruin -- o God, forgive him the ignominy he has done Iamarl's memory -- then others no doubt prey on the vulnerabilities of the people he and Maketh have sworn to protect. Only when the demons are gone will everyone be safe. There can be no respite until the demonic threat is crushed.

Maketh takes a shuddering breath, then forces herself to stand up perfectly straight. If she must be the voice holding him back, then she will do it. The task is better suited to Henry's sharp voice. "Brother! Did you swear to protect these people or not?"

This time she snaps it in her officer voice. It's a tone she hasn't often taken with Henry, but on Lothal it had - on occasion - made her commanders tremble.

For better or worse, Henry is not someone who can be intimidated. Nor does her tactic do anything to tame his anger: her tone escalates his own edge. That he is so subservient to Edward is something of a miracle of Edward's making.

"You would question my resolve?!" he snarls back, as he continues armouring himself. "My honour?!"

Why should she not? he thinks bitterly. After the display she witnessed...

Yet he does love and respect Maketh. He cannot effectively calm his fury when it is like this, but he tries for her sake. Once all of his armour is on he takes up his sword and shield again. His eyes are still ablaze, and he begins pacing with all the agitation of a caged predator, but he forces himself not to simply stalk out of this apartment. To listen.

"What plan have you?" he asks, with hot impatience.

"I question nothing of the sort!"

But one of them must be reasonable about this thing or they'll fall to ruin. Maketh doesn't move to touch him. She knows how hard it is for Henry just to hold himself still and wait for her to explain instead of charging out there to slaughter demons. Not after what it did.

She'll be efficient, then.

"We're going to do it systematically. Clear a grid so nothing can hide and escape our grasp." Maketh's face is hard. "Of course we will kill them all. But we are going to do it correctly."

"All right."

Henry continues to pace, his constant motion a symptom of his volatile mood.

"Determine your grid and let us not tarry."

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Event Log: Fadeout

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feel free to use the demon as you like!

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