❪ event ❫ hour of ruin

[natha]

HOUR OF RUIN     Sometime after midnight, after preparations have been put aside in favor of drinks and rest, a thunderous beating of wings shatters the air — the High Dragon Ysverai, once again risen. The sound echoes high off Namarak Mountain, but travels easily to both Wyver and Olympia: scream after scream rends the still night, as though a creature were dying rather than being born again. Having only had days to plan their defense against the creature, Olympia and Wyver snatch up their arms. The Royal Guard and the Knightryders can be seen on their steeds hurrying through the cities, because Ysverai doesn't remain isolated at the mountain's peak for long. There are pictures of Ysverai in abundance throughout both cities, but the creature that circles in the sky looks nothing like the majestic creature spoken of in history books. Even from far below, wounds and lacerations can be seen marring what should be smooth scales, and blood falls with every beat of the dragon's wings. The damage becomes more clear when moonlight illuminates Ysverai, revealing the rotting dragon for all to see. The sight of flesh peeling away and thick blood where it oozes from his cracked, greyish hide is as frightening as the power he possesses. REASON'S TRANSCENDENCE     Mad from the anguish of his forced revival, Ysverai will show none of his renowned wisdom or compassion, mindless and seeking to inflict his pain onto whatever emerges in his path. His very presence creates chaos: animals (Olympia | Wyver) domesticated and wild, flee from the merest hint of his approach, panicked and stampeding in wild droves. The reason is obvious: organic matter exposed too long to his presence begins to rot and decay. A field he lands in rots and lies fallow. Buildings crack and crumble, their supports pitted and corroded as though they've been left in disrepair for years. Even the ground that Ysverai walks upon is tainted; a corrosive sludge bubbles up in his massive, clawed footsteps, the ground beneath him putrefied and toxic, oozing corruption. This sludge can be tar-like, poisonous and sucking people in like quicksand; panic, and you'll only sink faster. Prolonged exposure to Ysverai takes a mental toll on anyone in his proximity as well. Effects similar to those from being near his heart — selfish desires and lowered inhibitions — will begin to fester in those around him. Every time Ysverai roars, pain will run through all those that hear him — a pain not just physical, but of true, anguished heartbreak. Those who hear Ysverai will feel (to a degree of your choosing) a sharing of his pain, the agony of flesh rotting from their bodies, blood oozing from under their skin, and a terrible, incandescent fury — and beneath that, a gut-wrenching sadness. This effect is further enhanced by any exposure to Ysverai's blood, and being drenched in greater quantities will cause one to become more in sync with the dragon. Finally, Ysverai is aggressive, attacking anyone and anything that approaches. He starts by breathing out a smog, acidic and putrefying — characters caught directly by this attack will find that medicine and healing magic of any kind hurts them for hours after exposure. The dragon will ignite the smog to breathe fire, if sparingly. IN WYVER     Ysverai's shadow falls over the near reaches of Wyver first. Upon hearing Ysverai's cry, the dragons in Wyver become completely frenzied, turning against their partners among the Knightryders without the slightest resistance. Those familiar with dragons might deduce that they're in pain, though they don't show any sign of injury. The dragons knock their riders off their backs in midair and dive at citizens, jaws wide. Any attempts to soothe them will be long fought, achieved with great difficulty, and will see them retreat into a cowering state. It's not just the airborne Knightryders taking to the defense of the city however, and people on the ground are mobilizing as well. On rooftops across the city are cannons set to fire harpoons. And if the spearheads alone aren't enough to injure the beast, they're coated with a paralyzing poison as well. Unfortunately, the soldiers stationed on the rooftops are prime targets to the frenzied dragons populating Wyver's skies, leaving the cannons open for ordinary citizens to use should they choose. Left alone too long, and cannons may fall under the control of the few remaining radicals that had opted not to flee the cities to join up with their leader Raysc, choosing instead to wait for an opportune moment to unleash their anger on the people of Wyver. These radicals will need to be dealt with before they can turn the cannons upon Wyver's defenders. IN OLYMPIA     In Olympia, the gryphon partners of the Royal Guard react with immediate hostility to anyone showing signs of Ysverai's influence. Their keen senses allow them to pick up the smell of Ysverai's blood and they attack anyone with so much as a drop of tainted blood on them. Those who bear lingering effects of Ysverai's mental attack and who remain in sync with the dragon after hearing Ysverai's cry are also targeted and must face the gryphons' wrath without mercy or restraint. The gryphons must be disabled, for Olympia will not look upon any injury to their prized steeds lightly. However, the gryphons also show some resistance to Ysverai's cry, which is a great boon in battle against the dragon — gryphons that have lost their riders will be available for use, able to carry two passengers at a time. The people of Olympia aren't planning to restrict their offense to pure brute force, and the mages of the city can be seen across Olympia wielding enchanted chains, using telekinesis in the hopes of restraining Ysverai and assisting in the airborne troops. But like the decaying buildings and wildlife, Ysverai is warping the magic around him, the chains faltering as they approach him, whipping back toward the city instead to cage whoever happens to be closest. It's not just the enchanted chains either, but other magic might behave erratically in his presence, as if the very essence of the spells have been corrupted. VIRTUOUS VERSE     Both cities realize they need to seek survival rather than victory against Ysverai, switching gears to carry out diversion efforts and evacuation plans. It falls to refugees to continue the offensive while the Royal Guard and the Knightryders devote their attention to ensuring the safety of the citizens as they flee. With official forces stretched thin, civilians and refugees alike will also need to step up to help herd citizens toward safety among a maze of collapsing buildings. Others will need to see to gathering resources for the evacuation, and while gathering non perishables is easy enough, it's considerably harder to wrangle livestock into cooperating amidst such chaos. Those fighting may be asked to act as bait for Ysverai. Chatter through official troops speaks of a switch in strategy: the objective now is capture the dragon's attention and draw him away from the populous cities and towards the South Outpost. Whether or not it's possible to defeat the dragon remains uncertain, but there's no question that it will be easier to battle him without worrying about civilians. THE RAGE     Luckily, the dragon is indiscriminate in his rage, and easily lured so long as a suitably infuriating target is before him. It doesn't take long to draw him to the South Outpost, but the trail of destruction he leaves in his wake is vast. Once there, the combined forces are greeted not just by Ysverai, but also by the appearance of Ysverai's master. How bravely you've all come to meet your doom! Great heroes, one and all, ha! I welcome you, bring your best. Show me the power that's protected Olympia and Wyver, all that you have to offer me, whatever pitiful excuse for valor you seek to cling to when the fear has you cowering in your beds. All will be for naught in the face of Ysverai's might! Let history witness the day the glory of war is reignited — the day that Wyver remembers its fangs once more! Come, Ysverai, last and greatest of the High Dragons! Come, and restore Wyver to its rightful place! Come, fulfill the promise as our protector that you could not in life! Raysc lifts a gleaming device as he issues his command. Red lights blink and blood, the same oozing liquid that drips from Ysverai's many wounds, runs in clear tubes through the device. Ysverai rears back as Raysc makes adjustments to a control panel — and then lunges forward, mouth agape. With a single swallow, Raysc meets his end. Raysc's attempt to control the dragon has only enraged him further, spurring Ysverai on to new heights of fury. It's become more vital than ever to face the dragon and take him down here and now. A few effective strategies are learned from research efforts and observed while defending Olympia and Wyver: goading the dragon into breathing fire will hurt him, burning him from the inside out, and attacks to his joints, eyes, wings, and exposed bone are effective. Ice is a natural repellent to dragons and can be used defensively or to weaken the dragon's hide. Healing spells will also react unnaturally to Ysverai's flesh, hastening his decay. However, while concentrated efforts will lock him down, Ysverai cannot be permanently killed in this state — his flesh constantly rots and spawns anew. Attacking him here is to protect civilians, keeping him busy to avoid mass destruction elsewhere. Therefore, the battle is one of attrition, a matter of a race against time. You must destroy his flesh faster than it is able to regenerate to have any hope of victory. Finally, when Ysverai is weakening, little more than bones with a few last vestiges of rotten meat hanging from a skeleton, the pathetic remnants of the last High Dragon takes to the skies. His wings are barely intact enough to carry him, yet desperation lifts him, higher and higher, until he lets out one great, earth-shaking roar. A roar that carries across the battlefield, sending all who hear it to their knees. A roar that shatters the swords in soldiers' hands, that rends apart the very air itself — Ysverai's last act, a great curse upon El Nysa, to bring down the sky. AND THE WORLD STOOD STILL     The terror of Ysverai's destruction hangs overhead — a tear in the sky, darkness pouring through, tendrils reaching down towards El Nysa to swallow up the planet in the dragon's final act of revenge. And yet nothing moves. A halo of brilliant light surrounds the rift in the sky, holding the grasping, hungry tendrils in check. And on the planet, not a creature moves. Not a blade of grass stirs. You're not able to even draw a breath. No matter where you are, not even the heart in your chest is beating. Everything has stopped — time has come to a standstill. In a wash of light, an aurora of transport, you find yourself delivered to Thesa Station. Darma stands before you, her expression solemn, perhaps even grim, though that may just be a trick of the station's harsh lighting. She explains what has happened in short order: planetside, time has been completely frozen. We have seen the birth and end of worlds. The rise and fall of civilizations infinite times over. We have seen all threads of possibilities that could have lead to this very moment... Or should have. Perhaps you might doubt our sincerity when we say this comes as a surprise to us, as well... Special technology has been used to blind us. To this day, we only know of one region capable of creating and utilizing such technology... you will find this technology in a city known as Nadril. We understand that you have created a life down in Wyver and Olympia, but now we must ask that you put that life on pause. We ask you to travel to Nadril and find the original Refugee, and with him, answers. As you will discover, he does not wish to speak to us. It is no matter. By now it is too late to keep the Nysan public unaware of our existence. We commend the efforts of those who wish to protect their comrades on the battlefield below, but a creature like poor Ysverai, twisted and warped, given unnatural life with terrible magic and technology, does not simply go down with manpower. Please, leave Ysverai to us. Time on the planet will remain stopped while we determine how to deal with the dragon. For now, rest and recover your strength. We have returned, and soon, there will be new refugees awakening. Perhaps you might like to prepare yourselves to greet them? I'm sorry that I can't answer more questions, but for now, all our attention must turn to finding a way to stop what Ysverai has wrought. A bank of monitors behind Darma displays the battlefield below: Ysverai's frozen, looming figure and the breach in the sky, and the Natha's halo, holding the destruction back. Though time passes normally on Thesa Station, El Nysa remains frozen, and all Refugees are unable to return to the planet until Ysverai's menace is dealt with. Luckily, with the Natha's return, full functionality has also returned to the station. The lights and environmentals are back to full power, access to all areas has been restored, the cafeteria is serving its normal offerings, and there's no evidence of any glitching or malfunctions. Doubtless, the period of rest is much needed after the hard-fought battle. For now, with time on El Nysa at a standstill, there's little else to be done but enjoy the reprieve aboard Thesa Station. FINAL OOC NOTE     Characters that reach an AC length action thread in this event will receive 2 rep for all factions, including Natha. Note that while these are split up for ease of processing, players may submit for all three. OLYMPIA | WYVER | NATHA Players can expect this event to run three days ICly before everyone is teleported to Thesa Station! From thereon, all characters will be grounded at the Station until the Test Drive Meme later this month. QUICK NAV premise ● faq ● lore ● map ● npcs ● bestiary taken ● atp/emp ● application ● rep/acp ● quest bulletin calendar ● hiatus/drops ● modbox [ FULL NAVIGATION ] elnysa nysalogs nysaisles nysaooc elnyan

Comments

[guidetoblivion]

Well, actually mentioning it would make this whole discussion awkward in ways that Riku isn’t sure this budding alliance can take just yet.

So he just nods, when Axel surprisingly keeps on admitting to flickers of emotions that he shouldn’t be able to feel, saying:

“I have some idea.”

Not about losing one’s Heart, he’s been fortunate enough about that, but… he’s had his Heart cast out of his body and into the Realm of Darkness and he remembers the utter terror of it (the loneliness and the guilt and the fact that only the thought of ’Sora’ and ’Kairi’ had caused him to last long enough for the King to reach out to him.

It’s a different kind of terror than the one he felt when confronted with Zexion in the memory of the Islands, but it’s terror nonetheless.

That Axel has been to the Islands though… that surprises him a little (though a moment second he scolds himself; he knows that Xion has been there. Why not Axel too?).

“Before we left… it used to feel like a prison to me. Like everything was just too small.”

There is some bitter taste on his tongue at those words; anger with his former self, but also understanding of things that he knows he couldn’t have grasped at with age fifteen. He is a little smarter now, so…

“Now though, I find the thought of it soothing.” He shakes his head sharply. “It’s funny; I never thought I’d miss the sound of the waves as much as I do right now…”

[icingonthecake]

He thinks maybe he understands what's bothering Riku now, and he gives him a slightly crooked smile.

"I get it," he says. "I never actively wished to leave my world, but I did wonder what else was out there. I thought that there was no way Radiant Garden was the only world in the universe, it just couldn't be. The universe is infinite, right? How arrogant would you have to be, to believe you were the only thing in it?"

He shakes his head with a sigh.

"But... sometimes I think, if I could go back in time, and just... not even wonder, if that would be enough to stop everything that happened, I'd do it." He lowers his eyes. "I know that my thinking about what might exist beyond the horizons of my little world didn't cause what happened to it and the rest of them, but..." A pause, and he meets Riku's eye. "It makes you wonder, sometimes," he says, "just how much power of suggestion might stand for. How much of what happens is coincidence, or fate, and how much is driven by our own actions?"

His smile is a little more sincere then.

"Xion liked the sound of waves, too," he says, making a gesture toward his ear. "She and Roxas would hold shells up to their ears to hear the surf. I never had the heart to tell them the ocean wasn't in the shells at all and it's mostly just the ambient noise around them echoing off the inside." He gives a nervous sort of laugh. "I guess I didn't have the heart for anything really, but... you know what I mean."

[guidetoblivion]

Does Axel really 'get it'? Does he know the pain of actions taken – or actions failed? Maybe he does, Riku acknowledges… maybe not just concerning his own home, but concerning his closest of friends too.

('It's my friends--they need me.' Xion had said, and though Riku had advised her to think, to consider who needed her more, her true place in the world… looking at Axel now, maybe she was right… he does need her in his life, the same way that Riku needs Sora and Kairi.

In the end, it matters very little though… with Xion gone, and even less with the worlds between destroyed and threatened by the Storm.)

"I'm not sure I believe in fate… at least not if it's used as a convenient excuse for people that can't bear the consequences of their own actions."

Losing the Keyblade to Sora… a weaker person would have called that fate, but Riku knows better. It was the result of his own weakness. In any case…

"The things we decide to do… or not to do… that's what matters most."

It has to, Riku thinks – because the idea of someone pulling his strings all along, some invisible fate leading to his downfall into darkness rather than his own stupidity… yea, he doesn't like that thought at all. Either way, he can't help but smile as the subject change and think of Sora and Kairi, and the time when they had been kids… he and Sora competing by looking for the best seashell with Kairi judging their findings by size and by holding it close to her ear to listen to the waves.

(Unlike Axel though, Riku had dispelled the magic as soon as he had known better – ever the oldest and the smartest, and oh so certain about the mysteries of life.)

"Yea… I know what you mean."

The feeling and also the reference… though he still wonders. Would someone who really doesn't have a heart keep on denying it so fiercely?

[icingonthecake]

If anyone can understand the sting of a good should'a could'a would'a, it's Axel, though he's aware Riku likely doesn't know the half of just how much he really screwed up. (For that matter, Axel's still got a good bit of screwing up in his future before he gets his head on straight, that even he doesn't know about, yet!)

He shakes his head a little.

"I didn't mean to use it as a crutch," he says, "but some things... really do feel completely out of our control that way, you know? I think that no matter what I did, Radiant Garden would have fallen to Darkness, and I would have lost my heart, probably. So maybe that was just my destiny all along." He shrugs one shoulder. He'll never know for certain, but that's what he believes. "I do agree with ya there, though," he says then. "Fate or destiny or otherwise, the choices we make are usually the greatest forces in our lives, and... making the right choice, or the wrong one, is what really defines someone, I'd say."

Making the wrong choice and regretting it, that matters, too. Axel still doesn't think he's a good guy, really--no, he's made far too many mistakes and bad decisions to really be able to say he's a good person--but... maybe he's not really a bad person. A good person wouldn't have screwed up this badly, but... a bad person wouldn't regret it, right?

Maybe this is his destiny, too, to forever be stuck in that grey area in between. Never fully in the light, never fully in shadow, Axel can't call himself good, but can't really call himself bad, either. Maybe this is just his lot in life, to be caught in the middle, straddling the fences in life for the rest of his days. He guesses it could be a lot worse.

[guidetoblivion]

Riku nods slowly, then lowers his head slightly in apology – he certainly hadn't meant to imply that Axel was at fault for losing his Heart or the fall of his world… (not like Riku had been at fault at the loss of Kairi's and Sora's Hearts or the fall of Destiny Islands).

"Yea… I think so too."

The choice Xion had made, in the end before the Organization had come and collected her again… to come to him, to search for Naminé and return to where she came from, even at cost of her existence and her very memory… it says a lot about who she came from but also about who she had become.

Sora, too, hadn't thought twice about giving himself up in order to restore Kairi.

Riku on the other hand, feels regret and guilt and feeds both into his own Darkness, uses them as his strength the same way he once used his fear, after Naminé had told him how to in the basement of Castle Oblivion. Maybe that doesn't make him a bad person despite the choices he made, the choices he regrets, but he definitely exists in that same grey area as Axel and he is content with that too.

After all, he now works from the shadows so that Sora won't ever have to reach into that very Darkness.

[icingonthecake]

He knows, really. Even if Riku's a bit of a jerk, Riku isn't mean. They have this sort of thing in common, he's found: they're both a little socially inept, they're both a little too blunt at times, and they both can come across as kind of aloof and standoffish, even if that isn't really who they are. There's a lot to be said for like trauma and how it can mold two very fundamentally different people into rather similar shapes.

He blows out a sigh and closes his eyes a moment, then looks up at Riku with a bit of a frown.

"So... what do you think happens now?" he asks. He's not really expecting a serious answer--none of them can know what the future has in store--but moving forward feels like the logical thing to do, anyway, and wherever they're headed, he's a little surprised to realize he's actually glad Sora and Riku are here with him.