westwhere | serthica: war & peace

serthica: war & peace

Clockwork Serthica’s arrival event stretches til around 3 September. You’re welcome to hit up this log or make your own entries. Characters not assigned to a region can still access it, as long as they’re discreet.

Please share cool plot clues via network — and have fun!

WAR & PEACE

SUMMARY: The Merchant assigns the group to determine if the dead lurk within Serthica’s adversarial halves. Eidris and Minaras hold a summit to normalise trade within Serthica’s elusive Neutral Zone — while a resistance movements attempts to capture Minaras lead figure Arabella. In Eidris, locals must calm a maddened dragon and her cohort and retrieve her hatching eggs. Minaras hosts its eerie civic indoctrination that seeks to extirpate physical and moral decay.

FAIR FORTUNE | SWITZERLAND | EIDRIS: THERE BE DRAGONS | MINARAS: EYES ON YOU

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FAIR FORTUNE

The party at sea is smuggled into Serthica with help from false passport papers secured by their Mouse House companions. The two groups meet at Serthica’s port customs, in time for the Merchant’s private transmission:

”Good afternoon. I salute and thank the efforts of our recent additions. You performed exceptionally.

You will hear Serthica is sundered by war, sickness and irreconcilable differences. In truth, she is likely divided by the interests of those who weaponise fear and manipulate opportunity.

In Eidris, they claim Minaraians are not human. In Minaras, they speak the same of Eidris. Disgust, dismay and paranoia have created a… system of profound physical avoidance. If this is mere fearmongering, it is distasteful, but inconsequential. However… if one of the citadel’s halves has succumbed to the dead, who now know to feign they yet live… this marks a dire escalation. You must study this.

Your transportation beacon sleeps in the holy grounds of Vassarizhia. It will light within months, when the Heart’s clock quiets for its annual winding. You may visit the grounds during the upcoming trade summit.

While in Serthica, your only objectives are to survive until the beacon’s eye opens, and to discover the dead present. I pray but question you will prevail.”

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SWITZERLAND

After a lengthy inspection of their passport papers, the party is steered towards the Sanctuary of Serthica’s Neutral Zone — a vast institute near Serthica’s great clock tower. Here, representatives of Eidris and Minaras assemble at midday for peaceful negotiations to improve distant trade relations.

■ The Merchant recommends mingling to broaden your investigation into Serthica’s dead. Even Minaras leading figurehead Arabella will attend.

■ For peace-keeping, entrants to the Sanctuary must surrender their weapons or allow them to be sealed, if they want to carry them in. Weapons are released on departure. Physical enhancements that characters cannot remove (ex: vampire fangs) are excepted.

■ Those who are unwilling to give up or seal their weapons can head on to Eidris and Minaras.

■ Summit attendants receive badges reflecting their Serthica identities, or can divert the greeting droid and liberate the insignia of a delayed delegation. Higher-ranking badges earns you more lenient treatment and higher security clearance.

■ Eidris attendants receive golden armbands or scarves, those of Minaras dark blue.

■ In bustling halls, officials negotiate grain exchanges, new train railways, the currency exchange rate and the saddening conditions of Mouse House exiles. Alas, if only someone (not them) could help.

■ Those drafted into the talks are toasted with a green, mint-like potion — an unadvertised truth serum intended to keep negotiations honest. The potion’s effects last two to four hours, compelling truth but not speech. But do talk: candour wins answers.

■ Artisans display their finest novelty items in the main reception hall. Aggressively enthusiastic traders seek testers and investors for their wares — potent opiates, goggles that show you the world in 10 years’ time, even detailed plans for luxury teahouses offering droid companionship. Extricate yourself with as much coin and dignity as possible.

SLEEP, CHILD, SLEEP

■ The great clock of the Neutral Zone strikes 18:00, triggering a light three-minute earthquake and the rise of nocturnal Minaras.

■ The Sanctuary loses all electric power. As servants rush for candles, you might notice some native summit delegates behave peculiarly: their eyes look glassy, faces trapped in an expression of comical, exaggerated dismay. Many are frozen in tense positions. Others move in sluggish, uncoordinated and jerky spasms. One might catch your wrist and attempt to speak in staggered, guttural croaks.

■ Lights return once the earthquake finishes. Locals resume regularly and do not seem to have noticed any erratic behaviour.

SLEEP, CHILD, SLEEP
CONTENT WARNING: TERROR ATTACK

■ Starting her speech, Arabella of Minaras calls a tribute for those lost to the great Culling sickness that struck Serthica mere years before. The vigil is interrupted by a fusillade of rifle shots fired from outside, through the Sanctuary’s wall-long windows.

■ The bullets exclusively target Minaras delegates and do not contain gunpowder, but a thickened, pale liquid. Once shot, those wounded experience a hysterical, incontrollable terror and the certainty that their greatest fear is hunting them. Many of the shot delegates develop an instant flight response and seek to claw their way out of the Sanctuary, with no care for whom they trample in their path. This terror lasts 30-60 minutes. Please content warn if you graphically describe your character’s greatest fear.

■ As rifle gunshots die down, a voice from outside introduces the Remembrance coalition, pledging safety if the summit surrenders Arabella.

■ The Sanctuary activates emergency measures: protective magical wards start to slowly reinforce, while attendants risk their lives to return characters’ weapons.

■ You could team up and help Arabella’s few remaining guards to escort her to safety in Minaras. Drop a line if you take this route.

■ Outside, you find the Sanctuary’s grounds have been drenched in a thick fog that barely allows you to see steps ahead. Your senses dull, and you are gradually prone to sleep — while masked men close in with rifles and vicious droid hunting hounds.

■ Help Sanctuary guards take out the assailants — and submit your character for a RNG draw to interrogate a lone captive.

■ Characters who later investigate the Sanctuary can find some of its windows have been very carefully pricked, fissured or even minutely holed, easing the way for attack.

Crawl back to your home base in Eidris or Minaras — you need the beauty sleep.

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EIDRIS | THERE BE DRAGONS

Eidris’s relaxed atmosphere might balm your rattled nerves after the Sanctuary’s disasters. Startled citizens gather to offer you help settling in, while dragons seek you out to curl up and nuzzle.

Eidris is governed by natural order and harmony, achieved through firm etiquette, consideration and reminders to slow down. You can hole up in a room in one of the many abandoned and repurposed villas, or group up to take a whole house. Local technology is a blend of mechanical gears and magic that substitutes fuels. Sorcerers are frequent, boastful and admired.

Dig deeper, and you’ll find the people of Eidris are unwilling to linger on negative experiences and gradually lose memory of them. If queried, many natives have normalised intermittent amnesia, with some using their link to their dragons to stay anchored in the present.

■ Acclimate to your roles in Eidris and enjoy the sweet welcome of neighbourly gifted meals and knitwear and a personal, signed letter of support from king Thivar.

■ Eidris prepares for the rare hatching of dragon eggs, lain by the beautiful fire-breathing Aiva — one of the fewer martial dragons used by Eidris’ military. Two weeks into your stay (around 25 August, forward date at will), word spreads that Aiva’s mate has been deeply injured by a Minaras scouting ship during the 6:00-7:00 overlap period when the two citadel halves are both overground.

■ A panicked, distrustful Aiva collects her silver-shelled eggs from the formal nest quarters, hiding them on the rooftops or in the balconies of tall, dangerous buildings. Several other martial dragons assist Aiva by guarding these hideaways until the young dragons can hatch.

■ Eidris calls back most transport dragons to avoid altercation with their fire-breathing, paranoid brethren. This might strand some riders on the nearest decrepit rooftop, while testy dragons fly by. They don’t initiate attack, but are more prone to warning tail sweeps or light charring, if you come close.

■ Dragon lord Cain d’Ubiq urges riders that can reconnect with their dragons to help retrieve the 1m, 50-kg eggs and deliver them back to the dragon grounds nest before they hatch by sundown — terrorising the baby dragons that wake alone and ripping into local architecture. Other riders are needed to spread a trail of deep incense smoke in the air that can soothe dragons from their outburst. Lend a hand!

■ Characters who enlisted for dragon riding on arrival could be middling riders by this point.

■ Aiva’s children hatch moments before the clock ticks 18:00 and Minaras also surges overground. Characters linked to a dragon feel the birth: first as an overwhelming exuberance, then as an all-consuming and irrational dread that briefly reduces them to inexplicable tears.

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MINARAS | EYES ON YOU

A sharp departure from Eidris’ laissez-faire is watchful Minaras, where citizens obsess with schedules, orderliness and time — as if every second is both borrowed and wasted.

Newcomers can choose between one-person 2.5x2.5m ‘sleep units’ in packed industrial homes, or pool funds to rent small refurbished alcoves that once served as hospital or science halls. Space is a luxury, silence a myth: helper droids constantly fuss after their masters, steam engines cough outside, and the gentle thrum on the streets betrays the current-shifting omnipresence of large Watch ships.

Civic sound systems periodically bleat reminders for citizens to STAY HALE, STAY WHOLE, alongside tips for basic droid care, the latest in scientific discoveries, paid ads and reminders not to park your robotic carriage near hydrants.

■ Quickly learn the ropes of your assumed identity, as Minaraians have a duty to report peculiar behaviours.

■ Watch ships prevent lawbreaking while Minaras is overground. Crime rates spike rapidly when Minaras falls underground.

■ More than violence, Minaraians appear to fear their pocket watch times being wrong, filth and sickness. The smallest cough earns a stern glance and a wide berth.

■ As part of Minaras’ periodic social indoctrination, you are robotically escorted alongside your peers and other unrelated Minaraians to a civic integration centre. Here, you take turns before a mechanical droid sphinx labelled ASCLEPIOS that asks, ”What rots you? and compels an honest answer (this can be emotional, mental or physical sickness, minor or severe).

■ A painless tattoo appears on the back of your hand, listing your Decay (ex: ‘malnourishment,’ ‘a choleric temper’). Others in the indoctrination centre must help you mend through acts of care (ex: cooking you a meal, helping you meditate). The tattoo fades after 72 hours, or once sufficient acts of care have ‘cured’ you.

■ After one week (around 20 August, but feel free to forward date), a transmission from Arabella informs watch, aerial, military and health units that Minaras is changing the daily schedule of its scout ships. The last scouts will now be deployed at 4:15am and return to base by 5:00am.

QUESTIONS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The role he has been given requires that he investigate this particular attack and prevent any further from occurring, or else he will take the blame for further loss of life. It isn't long following the attack that he returns to the scene of the crime to investigate. This time he has a droid with him. It walks beside him, steam coming out from its joints, sniffing and growling and watching. Secretly, Wrath likes the dog shaped metal thing - it's certainly better than most other aspects of Minaras.

He examines the windows - preplanned attack, which was clear by the weapons and bullets used. A strange method of attack - why did they wish to strike fear and not death alone? He runs his finger over the edge of one broken window.

For others who may be exploring the neutral zone, he lifts his head to watch them approach. "Are you here to investigate the assassination attempts or another aspect of this place?"

Edited 2022-08-14 19:37 (UTC)

A silent world, in wake of last night's wonder. He thinks, heartbeat a rabbit stayed, and the gallop of his thoughts swirling, steeping, stilling — thinks a day can span a thousand bridges of eternity, and there is a girl who opens the Sanctuary's doors for him and her eyes, yesterday, blinked blue. Now, downcast.

He does not wander. Drifts, steps stains between ruins, extensions of timid shadow. Skirmish of detritus underfoot, scratches of marble, glass shattered. Blood in charcoaled striations. He kneels, thumb tasting where stone has already absorbed the last of moisture. Remember that first kill, the one that named you a man.

Last night, larger, better, truer men screamed their nightmares. No spirits hide and nest and snag on the diffuse edges of his awareness, to greet him in confidence. He wrenches himself from the moment to the fastidious reality of tick, tock, tick, tock and footsteps disrupting the cadence. Phonic violence. Asynchronous.

He does not greet Wrath, from where he lingers knelt, swabbing at dried blood with a hungry slip of abrasive parchment. No magic here, no active talismans. They ask, he sees their bidding done. A guest, subject to hospitality.

"To taste their sorcery." And the slowed sweep of his hand, where iron shells of projectiles quiver under currents, from doors unhinged and windows tattered. "These... arrow tips did not serve to kill."

"I am told they're called bullets."

Guns and bullets do not exist in Wrath's world. He can only imagine the destruction mortals would get up to with access to such weapons especially given what they are able to do without them. He wonders if it is what eventually awaits within his world. Mortals are inventive after all, and one day, he may see such creations there.

His gaze lingers on where Wanji, and he nods.

"Yes. The intention was not to kill - some died from being trampled. Members of the group itself died avoiding capture and the soldiers that fought them die, but few at the summit perished. Their intention was to strike fear more than have many casualties. Fear can be a powerful motivator."

But it is telling that they did not wish to kill others to create that fear.

Cold, under hand. Fickle. Fingers fumble, and the arrow's tip — the bullet rolls, tipped awkwardly where one of its sides flattened. It must have met target, or a diversion.

"Death unites against the perpetrator," he murmurs, and the bullet spins and traverses one end of the gaping floors to the next, splinters of marble and wood unbound staying, then adjusting its course. No stench leaves it, no wet of poison. Only fumes and the silent staining print of magic dispersed, absorbed by wafts and flows of slowly cleansing currents.

His eyes lift, trail up, catch Wrath's. When he nods, it's, Sorcery, and the deed known between them. Another hunt starts, hands trailing on ground, as if he were a fisherman chasing glimpses of pearl in his net: here debris, there tattered clothing, oh, another bullet, another trial of his hands.

He continues, "Horror isolates." This gesture positions the sect of Remembrance as a threat of today, but does not exclude the possibility of an alliance tomorrow.

"What do you search here?"

"Exactly. Their goals require eventual cooperation."

Wrath nods his agreement with Wangi's assessment. The goals this group has cannot be met if they are seen as a group to be entirely stamped out. This leaves an effect on the population without preventing the possibility of future talks. In fact, it may motivate those future attacks if people want to avoid feeling so frightened again or a worse attack next time.

"My given role is a detective, and I was placed on this particular case to prevent future attacks." With the distinct impression that it would be on his head if he failed to prevent any further death. "I'm searching for any clues. The windows here show they were previously altered to make the attack easier."

It was carefully planned and coordinated. "It shows the group itself is well versed in strategy. Were you present for the attack?"

...the windows, readied for intrusion. He hesitates, gaze lifting in slow, trickling increments that drench the wall first, the finely braided filigree of its mouldings, as if — diffuse — it cannot hope to anchor on its target. From a distance, the stretch of immaculate, glistened glass teases him with its innocence. But then, the sun blinks, and light splinters as it spears the surface, half thinned, half resting as a beam. As if the surface it encounters is heterogenous, the work of poor marksmanship, or —

Scratches. At war, when the Wen embodied and enacted the ugliness of every trick of a dark trade, they would practise this: the lessening and quick erosion of bridges in their wake, so their pursuers might sink down and drown. He remembers the sickly indignity of it, how subterfuge transformed a battle of principles into one of attrition.

In his hand, the bullet's shell bites his palm, eats it raw. "The carnage."

So, he was. Present. Flattened on ground, rescued by Zhou Fei, captive to his own fickle fantasies that the floors might open soon like a gaping mouth and consume them. It felt — foregone, with men corrupted by their terror screaming out alien and invisible hurts, that the worst would come to pass to one and all, then.

And then, the moment fled.

"Men acted as beasts, frightened. I thought, perhaps their assailant invisible. They accused each a different cause."

Gelid off his tongue, slow to roll. A testimony should be pragmatic.

Wrath watches him carefully at his response like he is attempting to work it all out. There was great carnage. There were many who saw what wasn't there. He is accustomed to fear. He is fear itself. He has been so in the past for many mortals but he has also been temptation - whatever the role requires.

He has been judge and jury. He steps closer.

"The bullets altered one's mind - made them see what they personally feared the most. None of it was true. Only an illusion."

There's a pause.

"...you were hit?"

"Zhou Fei interceded." No, by any other name.

But was he spared? No poison sinks teeth as deep and sharp as helplessness. He remembers: the men squirming like beached fish on a battered floor, the woman scratching raw her own throat. All subject to horrors Lan Wangji could not presume to anticipate, ones he did not wish to envision. Scrying debris like reading fortunes in tea dregs, his nails catch on the glint of a rounded projectile, powders loosening off its tip. But he sees no dent on the artefact, no sign of collision.

"Weapo — ...bullets remain untouched. " Here, in Lan Wangji's hands, glistened like pearls and jewels. Pieces that failed to meet target. He intuits, before he speaks, before he shapes a proposition that would earn him the hard-knuckled back of Wei Ying's hand, thrice ringed for the hurt of it, "Perhaps... we may mimic the siege."

They are two men, between them: one to bear the experiment, another the study. And yet, "How are bullets propelled?"

....technicalities first.

Wrath raises an eyebrow at the suggestion brought out - to mimic the siege. He sees little reason to do so.

"To what purpose would we mimic the siege?"

He reaches into the pouch he brought with to pull out a gun he found among the many who fired them upon those in the neutral zone. This weapon is what propels the bullets, but he needs an answer to his question before he allows bullets to be placed within.

"We know these guns shot through windows to whoever exists on the other side. They want to strike fear. Not to kill. What more do you hope to learn?"

Wrath's sword hilt has lost its blade, curved perhaps to hand. It is thin and miscreant and, Lan Wangji need not criticise, but studies with care — unlikely to withstand a hard blow, or a forced parry. Were he a man of diplomacy, he might indicate this without heat, without cause for concern. Absent his brother's wit, Wangji may only conclude to urge Wrath to seek another instrument of war for his battles...

...until Wangji's eyes catch on the hilt's end, where the cavernous hole's dug deep to the weapon's core, and in his hand, the — bullets burn. He knows, in the way lambs know the threat of hawk and wolves, the fit is there, tight and warm. That the projectiles were expelled from that manner of tortured creation.

Wrath speaks his arguments, cleanly and clearly. Mouth dried, Lan Wangji exhales, "The taste of their terror."

No, hold. "Its make. How it consumes. How it releases its hold."

Whether it is a learned thing, a mimicry, an artifice or true. If it feeds off existing fears, or seeds new sources. If the stream of its horror ebbs and flows and cusps and retreats, or seizes the heart, unyielding in force for hours.

"In hopes it gives a greater understanding of what occurred."

It isn't a bad idea altogether.

Recreating what occurred the other evening but in a more contained way may give some answers they did not have before. When he took the gun in, he asked to be shown how it was used as well. There are bullets within it presently, and he goes through the motion he was shown to open the chamber and check that there are bullets within.

"I dislike this type of weapon."

He prefers battles that are closer - to feel the fear of his enemies as he carves a neat path through their throat.

Dislike, as if they can afford disdain of a plague that mere hours before culled hundreds through terror, through the worst of their own natures, revealed. But then, this is Wrath, thin-lipped and quick to mute arrogance, master of a strength so incandescent, Lan Wangji cannot qualify it, cannot anticipate its boundaries. If they exist.

"You hold the bullets' — " Crossbow is the natural speculation, as projectiles so often burst of cannon or bow. Yet the dead cold thing in Wrath's hand ill suits the denomination. He settles, mouth soured by the likely error, "...hilt."

And knew its name, and appear — resigned to practicality. Last they encountered, down in the depths, waters parted sibilantly for him to share their secrets. As if he were king, there. As if Wrath is king, crown reflected on broken ground of mosaic glass, everywhere he steps.

"Deploy it on me." Permission-plea, stillborn on his tongue. He thinks, his son would object and Wei Ying will not thank him. Thinks too, a core burns in him, bright and blinding, and there are days that tiptoe after carnage, dragged in by regrets, when it will do, that power. It will suffice him to survive. "I may attempt to speak the effects."

There is little that surprises Wrath any longer after his incredibly lengthy existence. This world has a habit of managing to do so time and time again if only because it places him in situations and provides him with magic and experiences which do not exist in the world he was made for.

Still Wangji's offer surprises Wrath enough that it actually shows on his face for a moment. His eyebrows raise, and the sharp gold of his gaze studies him carefully as if to see how serious he is about this. He holds the gun in hand still, but it is pointed elsewhere.

"Are you certain?"

It is not as if Wrath can volunteer. The best case scenario would be the fear bullets have little effect on him. The worst case scenario would be that they do. The city would not survive it.

But that does not mean Wanji needs to be shot instead.

"No." Ripped of him, wrenched. Viscera of his sincerity still covering the stillborn. He thinks, if the precepts of Cloud Recesses did not mandate honesty in all ways, at all turns, he would still afford it here: the man who inflicts pain must know. When Wen Qing bore the spread of her scale-poxed back to him, he knew.

As the pale light of a grey sky swallows the fractured marble, he finds his place on the floors again, one leg twinning the next. Proper, gentle presentation — kneeling to form. Like this, from motes of distance, Wrath need not strain his arm in a weapon's pull, to release the arro — bullet.

He has been, so often, the more courageous man of a contingent. And now, fingers curling, clasping, caging his fist, he steels himself to be brave again.

"Do it all the same." What needs done will be done.

Wrath nods his simple acceptance of this choice as he checks the gun once more to be certain it is outfitted with one working bullet. The rest are removed for the time being since they are not necessary for this.

He watches as he kneels. Wrath intends to step away from him to place more distance between them. It makes sense it would hurt more from up close, and he can make his way to his side again in a moment's notice if necessary.

However, he has one final question before he creates the distance and fires upon him.

"And what would you have me do should you lose control and run or fight as so many did during the attack?"

There are many ways Wrath could potentially stop him, and he will, but he wants to know what Wangji is most comfortable with.

"If." A calm correction, northward perk of his brows the natural adjustment before presumption. Probability favours Wrath's precaution — they have seen those struck diverge from morals, turning to an animal, base frenzy. But courtesy, kindness still dictate —

They have no time to spare for etiquette, not when each trickled seconds delays answers to last night's torment. Souls tortured, moans wailed, the hurt put in survivors. They did not hunt each other, yet still the accident of their fear led to blind streaks of dried blood hardened under Lan Wangji's fingertips, to walls collapsed and to each attendant encountered today staring in their wake, as if they anticipate Wrath and Wangji will soon shed their human skins to reveal monsters.

"You possess the skill to incapacitate." Or eradicate, for how the hound of a prone hell stared Wangji down from a pile of emptied, torn corpses. The little voice that fills his fragile memories speaks that truth: he recalls. He will not forget.

But he can — show manners, between them. When he draws out the scrawled sliver of parchment, clearly pressed taut after previous folding, it's to dance his fingers once, then again — and let the pulse of his qi activate the talisman, pull on the crepuscular motes of his power. Feed. And wait.

He slides it, characters facing upwards, towards Wrath's feet.

"Set it on my spine or shoulders. If required."

A body-lock talisman is such an underestimated tool of a hunter's repertoire.

Wrath leans down to pick up the talisman with interest. Objects used from other worlds in this way are of great interest to him, and he has never seen anything like this before. He can feel the power of it within his palm, acknowledging that the power comes from- from something more than any one individual.

"I will do so if it is required." The emphasis on the word is purposeful this time. He doesn't know if even he can withstand something that works on the 'neural pathways of the brain' - at least not in this world. "If it isn't, it will remain unused and returned to you after."

He continues to put distance between them until he is satisfied. He is near enough to hurt but not so near that it will hurt more than necessary for this experiment to occur.

Wrath lifts the rifle then - his finger is on the trigger. His gaze goes down its sight. He aims for his leg as opposed to any more vital area.

"Ready yourself."

When the proje — bullet hits, he is not ready.

He had thought, calculated, anticipated — but he is not ready.

Made a staggered, tight, reedy miracle of each of his inhalations, and he gritted his teeth and clenched cold-sweating hands on the taut stretch of his thighs — but he is not ready.

Biological pain disperses within heartbeats. First, the itch and dissolution of his flesh reeling, absorbing the sting. Then, the organism shocked by this betrayal of no shielding, no withdrawal, no escape. Then, fear cages his heart and squeezes.

And it spills from him:

"It builds. Minor escalations." He understands, all at once, the easy and relieving temptation others indulge when they speak their minds immodestly. There is a sense of peace in liberal loquacity. The excuse, here, now, gaze steeling while his voice hollowed, absent, level — is that Wrath and he agreed to a record.

"It draws on memory." A moment's pause, a shiver. His eyes shut. He blinks awake. "Intensifies it. Manipulates — I do not know if it distorts memory to reap more terror, or if that is my doing. Our control of me is... shared. Liminal. It continues to bui — ...not memories alone. Speculation. It... feeds off all it can capture."

And there is a well of resource within him.

Wrath decreases the distance between the both of them once more as he listens to what Wangji experiences. He is able to keep control of himself despite the fear clearly flowing through him. Wrath can feel it still though, sense it radiating from him as he sits upon the ground.

"...the way of fear."

Fear does not wait only at true memories, but it conflates, it twists, it reshapes.

Irrationality comes into place when fear is experienced at high levels.

It's clear the bullet is powerful in make, and the fact that Wangji remains speaking through those feelings is... impressive.

It sears him, shallow superficial outer tissue eroding, eaten-eaten-eaten-grazed by something quietly, viscerally, cruelly intimate. Fear is a part of him, reshaped, fear constructs him. Water, dammed.

He will break. He will break. He will hold. His hands clutch air, choke it.

"I had... not foreseen —" He breathes, reedy, thinner than breaking branches. A forest. If you walk it, you own it. If you walk it, you set it free. If you release it — the principles riot in his head, amorphous, without cause or purpose. He understands, vividly, this much:

"I did not understand there is so much to fear." It coils in him. Winds him. Like a — cog. "It creates."

And with the next monstrously measured exhalation, "Now."

The talisman. If Wrath pleases.

Wrath feels the way the fear increases as Wangji attempts to fight against it. He lasts longer than Wrtath would expect many would. He stays near though, understanding there will be a limit, which will inevitably be reached.

The fear bullets do not allow for anything else. Fear itself in excess cannot be wrestled against. There is a point of no return for creature and human alike.

It can play tricks on one's mind - turn normal sights into something dangerous. It latches on to any vulnerable part of a person. There is little that frightens Wrath any longer. He is Fear itself and mortals cower at the sight of him and tell their stories of the devil to scare each other into the church's submission, but as soon as Emilia is placed into the mix, it all changes.

He fears anything happening to her. He fears her secrets taken from her, her chose stolen away. He fears he will not be able to break the curse at all. For a long time, he feared she would not choose him, but he was wrong to. Now she knows who he is (and all the stories told to her) and she has still.

At the now, Wrath moves forward in a whir of demonic speed and places the Talisman upon Wangji's shoulders as he had instructed. Wrath remains near, however. He does not want to go too far in case something else should happen, and he is interested in watching the object work.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

serthica: war & peace

switzerland - after/investigation - ota

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