feast and make merry

[groundrules]

MASQUERADE

---

The following events should cover the span to 31 AUGUST. Feel free to make your own posts/logs, or use this one! Routes have been built based on previous plotting, but any last-minute questions can be asked here. Try to limit it to asking concrete outcomes for things you are definitely exploring in your tag-ins!



■ Don Macaluso has welcomed his suitors, including the party's very own Diego Hargreeves. And his wolves. He stretches Taravast's hospitality to a lavish masked fete, observed at the Palace of the Doxe. No expense spared, no opportunity to flaunt lost.

■ In attendance — sorcerers' schools, foreign dignitaries and suitors, prominent healers and academicians, artists and politicians, members of the Conclave and, somehow, the Merchant's hooligans. Good gossips, one and all. Show up or throw the gauntlet: those who do not come willing will be escorted in by guards.

■ Even Lady Vannozza and her supporters come to wish Macaluso well in his conjugal pursuit. She publicly gifts him a cryogenic rose, urging her cousin to award it to his intended. Macaluso calmly accepts the flower, then discards it on his table.

■ Out of respect for the nascent political contest, the supporters of Vannozza and Macaluso — yes, you — are seated at two different tables on each side of the fleetingly present Doxe Bonaccorso. The old man will appear in feeble health but firm dignity, excusing himself after a tremulous speech that ends, tenderly, "Citadels are for the living. They are for the gathering of means, of magic, for the making of families and legacies. They are not coin for commerce. I welcome you to my home."

■ For the grand finale, Macaluso's servants introduce a traditional fragile, sweet confection offered to his private guests. It can be refused. Those who consume the confection will find their strength and senses progressively deteriorate, threatening to kill them within five days.

■ A good showing by Fox, Mingyu, Wen Kexing, Zhou Zishu, Xie Lian and Alina earned the Lady Odile more of Macaluso's favour. In gratitude, her servants send word to these characters only that there is poison afoot, without mentioning which dish.

■ Within the hour, Macaluso calls the celebration to its end, pained to announce it has been stained by sabotage and poison. Macaluso's guests, including the characters in his employ are drawn into private quarters and examined by physicians, who name the cause of the sickness — winter lily mist — but offer no clear antidote.

■ Frustrated, two healers will list two superstitious cures: the elusive, shady 'fire water' of the necromantic district's underground poisoners 'potions brewers' or the ground feather of an elusive owl last seen in the private, locked away Spina hunting grounds.

■ Characters assigned to Macaluso will spend the night huddled together, with healers. Fearing her people will be unfairly faulted for the poisoning, Vannozza will lock her attendants in her palace wing. The atmosphere is tense, with Vannozza's people accusing characters and each other. Overnight, some of Macaluso's drunk supporters will try to enter Vannozza's palace wing and cause a brawl. Defend the lady?

■ Come morning, the poisoning is blamed on the ringleader of one of the recent protests objecting to Macaluso's marriage to a foreigner. Characters may circulate freely.




THE SHADY MAN TO THE LEFT

■ The necromantic district is a... literally and metaphorically shady congregation of small, run-down houses and the city's 'finest': criminals, thieves, the mates of your horsecar friend Caspar, actual necromancers and sellers of flesh parts.

■ Those who ask for 'fire water' will face a few days of exploration until an old beggar finally takes pity on their cause and, in exchange for wine, offers them an introduction to a secretive gang gathering of necromancers — the Unseeing Watch.

■ The Watch are an eerie group of grotesquely deformed necromancers, some of whom have clearly been stirred back from death a number of times themselves. They explain that the 'fire water' is a brew that can be obtained from two sources: the blood of either a man who has killed many innocents ruthlessly (such as the many murderers and slavers who travel the darker corners of the district) or of a...

■ ...harpy, not unlike those encountered in the Stairs of Sighs corridor: winged creatures dripping tar and harrowing sorcery, that crowd in flocks at the periphery of Taravast. The harpies of Taravast are ancient defenders of the city, who have forgotten their purpose and turned feral. Their claws run sharp, causing cuts that bleed without healing properly for hours.

■ The harpies are best faced in pairs, but beware: if you speak too long, they will learn your voice and imitate it to lure in your companions. They will also attune to emotions and mimic the voices of people characters remember.

■ Retrieve two blood vials from either man or creature to the necromancers, along with two vials of your own blood, and the Watch will prepare two batches of antidote. One cup for you, the other for their own purposes.



THE (HUNTING) GAME IS ON

■ Wen Qing has brokered access to the hunting grounds, for an easy entrance point. Those who wish to find an alternative route can try to have their characters infiltrate Vannozza's quar ters and steal her keys — but only theft such offensive can be carried out, so unite forces.

■ The Spina hunting grounds are a few hours' ride away, and carriage drivers seem unwilling to make the journey. Help the local economy: steal a horse.

■ The forests are a magnificent spread of everything dark and haunted, drenched in mist and sporting minimal visibility. There is a pronounced air of death and the stench of decay, with perfect, eerie stillness during the scant sunlight and a torture of creaking sounds, whispers and ghostly chills at night.

■ In addition to the typical violent forest fare — wolves, foxes, bears — the grounds also host the first sign of true undead: less well composed than some characters might remember the men of Anurr, lacking true awareness. Their garb and occasional garbled talk will reveal them as former sorcerers and witches of Attaryl and Bessis, killed during the confrontation between the two schools. Their spirits have been bound to protect the grounds — and they give vicious chase, calling on fire magic and wooing animals to help their hunt of invaders.

■ Run. Run fast.

■ Only two antidote owls emerge at night, drawn to drink from the forest's (shallow, broad) lake water. They are a mated pair, highly sensitive to sound, likely to escape on the first few attempts of capture and indifferent to magic. Farmhouse lesson: careful with the lake waters. The hands of bound spirits might seek to pull innocents in.

■ Owl feathers, ground and thinned with water, can create a highly potent cure that will take days to return a patient to full health — their hearts, eaten whole, can give one person instant recovery. Up to you, if you want to be that asshole.

QUESTIONS

Comments

QUESTIONS

[groundrules]

Since much of the initial planning has already been covered, let's please keep it to just questions where you need an outcome for actions your characters are 100% taking. Thank you!

[downswing]

i. when in rome venice taravast (masquerade)

[ He forgets himself, his face. Shields behind the broad spread of a veined, gasped mask and assumes the tatters of borrowed disposition — brother's polish, the abyssal, oceanic depth of a courtier's bow, the breezy elegance of a coquette seeking her first matrimony.

Flickered light forgives him; trailed like a firefly's train, he flits — a creature of white still, pale under his silks, like spume of anger — from the periphery of the reception halls to their bright-blinding maws. Candles at each step, sundering the room between territories of dark shadow. Traversing them, come the whispering emissaries of milling crowds. Cloying, sticky sweetness of incense and the organic pungency of excess alcohol, so thickened still that its scent spreads aftertaste.

For Lan Wangji's part, he looks each way: when lovers nearly crash into him, too immersed in their affections. When the attendants bring in mounds of delicate, shifting, trembled confections. When diplomats mistake him for a skittish negotiator, and sorcerers for a spy, turned indiscreet. When servants, finally, tire of the seamless, stiff stolidity of his presence and entrust him with a tray of wine cups he seeks to returns to them, only to be seized, at each step, by thirsting merrymakers.

Lan Wangji was not forged for popularity. And finds himself ill at ease enough to offer the tray of half-filled wine cups that's periodically refilled and assaulted by vultures to the nearest, dearest, standing-still person. ]

...perhaps, for your balance.

[ Take it. It's your turn. ]



ii. after: the sickness halls (#teamMacaluso)

[ He takes to sickness easily, with the greed of the death-marked. Poise is the first casualty of honeyed erosion, the line of his shoulders ruined — a house, lessened at its foundation. Poison, but he knows the word before the healer speaks it, feels it in the empty, ceaseless turmoiled groan of his core, grinding.

Hurt starts so: when his body, depleted of recourse, bides the time to recuperation with false surrender. He feels it warm, a feverish spread, molten, where his fingers scatter, spider, catch cold and futile on the ledge of the fainting sofa they've delegated him. Rest, they said, and to what purpose? In his mouth, tongue slack, and behind his lids, white brilliance.

He ate of the thing, the one paltry concession to their benefactor. And him, a politician of the courts, an envoy of Gusu Lan, chief cultivator. Survivor of two war campaigns, and of Jin Guangyao. And he closed his mouth and walked his teeth and in the space of these roiling, cluttered, suffocated quarters, he hears only the hollow collision of regrets unspoken. You fool. Fool thrice over. You leave behind a son, you leave a man who knows you, a woman without defences. You leave a life. You walk freely.

Between them, the healers come and go, to trade the lilting platitudes of coreless reassurance. Distantly, he feels the shift of weight, redistributed — the soft, intrusive presence of another person sat beside him. The healers again, with their borrowed poetry. The verdict of sickness. The plaintive apology. The bows, the pledges to attempt against odds of impossibility, to seek a cure or a palliative brew. Like a brush of birds' wings, come.

And gone.

He is not a man of medicine, not a priest, not a hermit possessed of kind patience. Knows not whom he speaks for (another; himself) but offers indistinctly, once the healer has retreated, and it is only them, two fools condemned: ]

Fear nothing.


iii. the second poison: jiang wanyin

[ He knows, Jiang Cheng knows.

Round, empty-minded gasp: Lan Wangji tastes fear vinegary and thick-laced down his throat like poorly-ground ginseng, a hard swallow. Watches the small hands of a healing woman extricate the sweat from Jiang Cheng's face, take the soft, ghostly print of his pulse, doubtlessly as defiant as Lan Wangji's.

He remembers: Jiang Cheng's eyes dark across the feasting table, Wangji's first to turn away. Unpleasantness begs no persistence of company. There are rules for this, for them, etiquettes that paint their hostility as indifference through the lens of vagaries. They crumble like scratch-marred walls now.

No sooner the healer leaves Jiang Cheng, Wangji meets him. Silence spell. Bichen. Talismans. His bare hands, turned feral. Of all the weapons at his disposal, he chooses the bend of his knees: one, then its brother. The trickled, calculated collapse of his arms beside him, for a bow would be too insincere of a transaction.

He knows, Jiang Cheng knows. They ate of the same poison. Were seen by the same healer. Abandoned in the same corner of the emptying quarter. ]

Say nothing of me to them.

[ But Jiang Cheng will. Spite rots his blood, compels him. Spills across the parchment of his body, his soul, like downturned ink. Wangji cannot fight tide, being himself half-water. ]

Brother. [ And watch her, Bichen's tip would not carve out his ribs and gut him so cleanly, would not skewer so completely as this one word, ill purposed. Blessing, turned curse. May Zewu-Jun spit a thousand turns upon Wangji's face, and honour will not be satisfied. ] Hate me enough to deny me this. Remember what I stole. That I watch his sleep and stand his sword, and he will not be returned to you.

[ Sizhui. Wei Ying. What difference will a final cruelty make, now? With all lost, already? ]


iv. a man and his game

[ Forests, again. Haunting, once more. Phantasms, greedy hands, bleeding him, scratching them, chasing. Scenting despair, roots of the nearby trees riotous, trembling to hunt them down. Under a gravid moon, he feels himself the part of the rebel hero of legend, in motion.

He has yielded, by now, the better part of lesser senses: touch fooling him to question if the bark under hand is thick or thinned. If his grip on Bichen, the sword unmoving in her hilt, comes errant and wavered. His hearing starts to give, and he thinks, more fool him, he needs only blood in his strangled veins to sense his heart adrift, then beating, as a war drum.

Fortune favoured him: Wen Qing bargained their entry, but he fled discreetly, purchased the privilege of perching alone in this mad, tight-bound tree with the coin of his own untempered yearning. He cannot ask where Wen Qing and Wei Ying have gone, how they keep. Cannot invite the imprint of care, like hands strangling his throat.

So, he waits for the owl. Waits the hour. Waits and waits and waits, and remembers that he was never a hunter of animals, only of men — and that, peering in the distance, he suspects he sees an owl — a large voluminous beard, bright-eyed and majestically indifferent in the way of creatures that owned a land before it was peopled. It need not fear Lan Wangji: it was old, before he left his swaddling. It will outlive him.

And he does its prophecy little injury when it lands at the tail end of the branches whose root he'd perched on, and Lan Wangji deploys against her the full strength of a tutelage in talisman magic, a shower of parchment, an excess of cord sorcery and, finally, the man himself, dashing, sword drawn, to strike down the beast —

Only to land at the feet of the tree, proudly holding out his catch before the newcomer who's joined him: a well-fed, murmuring, terrified... ]

...nightingale.

[ Better luck next time, Lan Wangji. ]


v. same verse, same as the forest's first | wei ying wuxian

[ They circle in each other's orbit so often than the tragedy of gravity collides them inexorably. He does not ask how came the familiar, tendril warmth of Wei Ying at his back, how he tastes it like blood-iron in the back of his mouth, between the sharp rustle of grass and leaf, the waters of misted moonlight.

There is a thrill of exhilaration in this: knowing the enemy close, however discarded its face, however scratched its eyes and likeness. Scenting death and decay and the bite of both on his limbs, and knowing them kept jealously safe under the watch of a companion. This man, whose shoulder rises with Wangji's, to mirror the balance of their footing. Who knows, inexplicably, the smears and catches in Wangji's breath, echoed in his own.

Who needs no greeting past the soft, silvered inclination of Bichen to Wangji's right side, a broad arc that betrays an excess of indulgent comfort: an enemy might find the span to strike. Wei Ying requires no opportunity, fits his blind spots like a weathered glove. Even in this, he proves a fluid, generous companion.

If Wangji loses every sense, every thought, every compulsion, he will retain this: the certainty that comes, quicker than velvet shrivels on ground, when his sight of true enemies is lost, but he is found.

Laughter claws out, coarse. He cannot help it. Omissions and secrets only thrive in silence. What more is there to say? ]

...that day. I craved loquat.

[ That, apparently. ]

Masquerade

[scrapgege]

[This is... the most useless information to be given, really.

'There's poison in some of the food, but we don't know which.'. Great. What are they supposed to do with that? Alerting the whole hall is not smart, but even though Xie Lian knows he himself won't die from poison, it seems relatively urgent to at least try and warn his companions... but how?

Out of desperation, he lean towards the closest one to whisper in their ear.]

Try not to eat anything if you can. Someone sent word there was poison in some of the food.

[somebadnews]

i. it's not a fashion statement ( masquerade )

Shifting around some overly decadent estate room, everyone dressed in their costumes and ornate masks, it's hard to believe just weeks ago they were seeking shelter from blood rains and an army of hostile ghosts. Five couldn't say which he preferred, but where he currently stands isn't as unfamiliar to him as some might think. He suffered through enough of Reginald's parties a lifetime ago to know how to act at these events. It's not even the first time he's done this wearing a mask.

The half-mask over his eyes also helps to conceal any of his discomfort from the curse that he's once again decided isn't as important as everything else going on. It's inconvenient, but as long as it stays at the level it's at, he's well enough accustomed to stay functional. In the meantime he can keep an eye on his family. He speaks when spoken to, and while he has some trouble concentrating on what is said to him or remembering his backstory, he manages to rein in most of his more abrasive personality quirks behind a tight smile.

Having them all gathered in one room is foreboding, and he constantly checks to see where his siblings are and who they're talking to. It might have been overwhelming in this crowd, but it's not, and he has it under control. As soon as they're seated and served, he discretely takes a piece of cutlery from the table and tucks it into his sleeve. Just in case.

The food is immediately passed over, but the evening wears on him and he gives in when it comes to drinking. When it finally comes time for the speech, he eyes Bonaccorso, and scoffs at the word 'magic' before downing the rest of his cup. That lapse in judgment is only realized a short while later there's an announcement that they've been poisoned.

Of all the stupid things.

ii. party poison ( examination )

From staying relatively calm at the party, Five is immediately on edge when they're taken to another room to be examined. He'd rather they start with Vanya, but he's shoved forward before he can say as much, and they look at him with concern in their eyes. If it's his apparent age that draws their sympathies, he's ready to make them regret ever considering it. The actual time they spent examining him is short, and he bristles as they exchange glances and turn their backs to murmur to themselves.

He'd forgotten about the curse. They at least call it a sickness, though they don't offer anything after informing him of what he already knows. He doesn't feel differently otherwise. If he'd been poisoned, it seems like he would (probably) be aware of it already, so he waves them off. All of his focus turns to locating his sister, and he immediately rushes over once he spots her.

"Did you have anything?" He really should have known better, and warned her specifically instead of just paying attention to people getting near her. It's such an obvious tactic. If someone legitimately tried to poison his family, he's going to have something to say about it.

Not long after he's pacing around, noting those gathered around, and how sick they look. Turning to whoever is near, he asks the obvious question. "How do we fix this?"

iii. boy division ( morning after )

When they congregate the next morning, Five doesn't feel like he got more than an hour of sleep. Yet again, he's spent half the night trying to work out math that could send them back in time just far enough to avoid the incident, but he's not confident he got there. He'll revisit it if he has to, and someone he needs around dies. From what he can tell, they have a few days before that happens.

The situation they're in is clearer now, and he's eager to hear about anything he missed. If they heard who the ringleader was. They should know to contact him with any developments, but it's easier for him to tell if there's anything they're leaving out if they speak in person.

Until he finds out otherwise, he's expecting to find out that Diego was in the middle of some stupid brawl as soon as tensions boiled over. Five told him to get rid of those wolves.


ooc: will match action tag or prose as you like

[elfuego]

1. in the company of healers (team macaluso)

The healers came and went, and while he could feel the poison he had unknowingly ingested gnawing away at his gut like acid while his head swam and his limbs felt heavy, Zuko refused to let it win.

He stood. He was using the wall behind him to brace some of his weight, sure, but he kept his back straight and his shoulders tense, closing his eyes and breathing. His mind fixated on the feel of energy moving through his body, fueled by his breath. He tried to picture that energy fighting back against the poison - though he had no reason to think it was so - it made him feel better.

The sound of footsteps made him open his eyes once again, and he turned his head slowly, his vision clearing some as he watched the individual approach.

“Those healers don’t have good news yet, do they?”

2. harpy pregame network, text (un: the blue spirit)

I talked to a group of necromancers who claim to be able to make a cure for the poison. They need harpy blood to do it. I’ll be at the eastern edge of the city at sundown, I’ll start my hunt from there.

3. waiting for dusk

After being the poison’s victim for the last few days he’s weak but undaunted. Zuko was used to doing things by himself and while in his own time and place he had been under the impression that he could learn to change that and make room for other people, in this strange where and when he fell back on finding stability in solitude.

Besides, if the harpies didn’t like fire (and he really hoped they didn’t) he liked to think he stood a pretty good chance of taking a few down.

He had sent out his message through the pendant, simple and to the point, and while he had not directly asked for aid (because some things he just didn’t know how to do), he wouldn’t refuse it should it come. He was still upright, but the ravages of poison had left him weak. Were this a challenge reserved for his swords alone, he might consider himself not up for the task, but he was done with not using his bending and tired of concerning himself with being met with reproach at the sight of what he could do. He was sick, he was weak, and he intended to use whatever he had at his disposal once the sun finally set and it was time to begin the hunt.

Jackie Ma | Sleeping Dogs | he literally just got here after the poisoning, please be nice to him

[jinzhong]

0. intensive care (cw: description of torture and disembowelment) | closed
Jackie's heard that when you die, your brain shoots off a bunch of random neurons, and he knows he's dying, because Tong had just taken that machete and gutted him like Mrs. Chu gutted fish in the kitchen of the Golden Koi. She'd recruited the gang to help sometimes, ordering Winston and Conroy and Vincent and Duke and Wei (sorry Wei sorry Wei I'm so sorry Wei don't get hurt because of me I'm sorry) to put their knife skills to use, improve them, and Winston, mama's boy that he was, would always round them up to help.

Winston. Winston and Peggy and Vincent and Mimi and Dogeyes he'll see them soon he'll hug Winston he'll punch Dogeyes he'll tell Mimi all about her brother and he hopes Wei won't join them anytime soon because Wei needs to stay alive and not join them in Hell not yet not until Tong and Big Smile Lee are there too and not for years and years because he deserves to live and if anyone can survive this fuckfest it's Wei Shen, his best friend, the strongest man he's ever known.

Jackie hazily feels his torture wounds being attended to. The drill to his knee, the broken fingers, the scalpel cuts, everything that Tong did to him to try and make him flip on Wei. Hou sei la lei, you motherfucker. You’ll never get me to roll over on Wei. Never! He’s no fucking cop!

There's no pain in his stomach. Maybe it's too deep to hurt.

He wakes again, shackled (up to the pipe before Tong sank that machete in deep, being taunted, but no now he's on the floor not dislocating his shoulders what's going on), and he can hear voices. Someone comes up to him, giving him something strange and introducing herself as Karsa, explaining things that are hard for him to follow. He does his best to absorb the information, even though it makes almost no sense. Is this what Hell is like?

It gets easier. He still hurts. His clothes are still bloodied. But his stomach is whole, and his injuries are largely healed. He's told what to do, and, still feeling bamboozled, goes along with it. Nobody's trying to hurt him. Yet.

1. initiation | open to the Macaluso brawlers
The mask is weird. The clothes are weirder. It's like something out of a movie he never paid much attention to - nothing as easy to move in as what he's used to. There are too many buttons, and he misses the loops a couple of times and needs to do it again. The clothes are heavy and hot and would never work in Hong Kong.

He's got his orders; either to try and get the gang to give up their attack on Vannozza's wing, or help rescue her if and when the doors are breached.

"Oh, man, this sucks," he mutters under his breath.

2. vendor extortion | open to team fire water
At least Jackie missed out on being poisoned. Phew. Since hunting is something he's never done before, he decides to go look for the people in the seedy parts of the city. He grew up in Old Prosperity; this is where he's comfortable. He's talking to all the criminals and thieves he can find. In his old clothes, his Triad tattoos are visible, and criminal markers are identifiable anywhere. He definitely doesn't have the look of a reputable guy.

Yeah, he'd wanted to leave that life behind, but maybe he can do that once he's helped people not die of being poisoned. It's better than being in it for your own gain.

He runs up to the nearest person he recognizes in passing. "Hey, you found anything?"

[lancifolium]

1) in her ladyship's service (team vannozza)

The sounds of ornery drunkards had been easy enough to tune out until the crowd seemed to migrate, the sounds of rabble-rousing growing closer and becoming angrier than just the harmless patter of rollicking drunks.

Lily didn’t like how close to Vannozza’s wing of the palace they sounded, and as she left her room to head towards the end of the corridor she kept a firm grip on her wand as the angry voices grew louder. Her heart sped as she listened to how close they sounded and drew her wand, locking the door to the lady’s wing of the palace before waiting for them to reach the knob with her breath caught in her throat.

She hoped her charm would hold, or - in a worst-case situation, that someone else staying in this part of the palace had heard the crowd’s approach and find themselves keen and able to defend.

2) in the night garden

The shape of the mansion situated on the hunting grounds was still visible beyond the line of dark woods. Between long looks upward at the trees, hoping for a sign of the owl she checked back with the shadow of the manor house on the grounds, using it as a landmark to try and keep from getting lost. Lily knew she was capable of transporting herself back to the Vannozza wing of the palace in less than a heartbeat, but she didn’t want to have to do that - she had come in with a group, and she intended to make sure she and everyone else could leave.

“Bit funny don’t you think?” She asked in a whisper to the group member beside her. “The lady believed Wen Qing to be using these grounds for sordid reasons, yet she neglected to mention how ill-fitting this place was for them.” Lily drew her wand and swished it slightly, illuminating the tip in a soft glow meant to serve in place of a torch, or a flashlight.

“Perhaps the lady is a believer in creepiness as an aphrodisiac,” Lily continued before the soft hooting sound of an owl made her fall silent, cutting the light from her wand in an instant as she squinted up at the trees, her eyes following the sound of rustling wings.

3) evasive maneuvers (for eleven)

Finding Eleven in the forest had been a surprise, but Lily was familiar enough with his abilities to know what a good ally he could be, so she stayed close to him while they looked for any sign of the owls.

While her original purpose in seeking access to the grounds had been for a different task, she was glad to be an extra set of eyes, especially for a task as important as finding a cure for those in their number who had been poisoned.

They had not been searching the forest long when the sound of hooves drumming against earth broke the eerie silence of the forest. She froze midstep and looked behind her, her stomach dropping as she caught sight of something moving fast in their direction.

“Quick,” Lily hissed in a panicked whisper before grabbing Eleven’s shoulder. Steering him back against the nearest tree as what she presumed was a mounted guard came closer she pressed herself against him, her hands coming to his cheeks as she kissed him hard, achieving that compromising position they had all agreed to assume should anyone come to investigate what was going on.

if you're willing to pay the price | closed to wrath, emilia and five

[rumorate]

It takes some time to sneak out of the palace and make their way to the necromancer district. In the end, the best course of action seems to be sticking to their "Teams." Emilia and Allison wander their way down together and wait at the entrance for the other half of their party to arrive.

They're dressed down somewhat, wanting to blend in and not show as much of their fancy palace attire. She's sure that they're true allegiances will be exposed eventually, but for now, she doesn't think that it's wise to ask too many questions.

Glancing around, she moves closer to the shadows while keeping an eye out for her brother and Wrath.

"They should be here soon."