Welcome to Theia!

[theianmods]

Who: Your mysterious caretakers and you
When: September 1st
Where: The Town Square
What: The welcome wagon has arrived!
Warnings: Minor gore, death




It's a white envelope that finds its way under every door, through every nook and cranny a day or two after your arrival. With the peculiar, bloodstained fingerprints lovingly applied as though they were a signature scrawled into its thin paper body, it doggedly persists--it will find you--until you open it and read the letter written ever so meticulously in fine script. It's a cordial invitation to a party hosted in your honor in the town square today. You should hurry, hurry, hurry! You wouldn't want to be late and keep your generous hosts waiting... or so says that oddly compelling feeling pressing into the back of your head. You make your way to the square, the urgent tugging feeling growing stronger the closer you get, and when you turn the corner to get a glimpse of the festivities, you find it's... not quite what you had been expecting.

The square is small, and looks rather out of general use. The fountain in the center is dusty and crumbling, and if there was ever any water in it it's long gone now. Most of the cobbled stones are broken and loose in the road. There are two long tables stocked with refreshments along either side of the walkway to the fountain, and what appears to be a small stage of some sort right in front of it, holding a large, ornate chair and a third table. The most unsettling thing, however, is the rest of the décor.

The theme is death, or so it would appear. Beside the food table to your left sits a bespectacled man wearing a scarf, but was the scarf always red, or is it only stained so because his head is hanging onto his neck by a thread? Against his lap rests a beautifully crafted cello, which appears to be missing its G-string... Oh. There it is--it's still stuck in the gashed man's neck. The poor bastard has been garrotted with the strings of his cello! Talk about hoisted by your own petard. Where his head lolls against the table, you may notice that behind those glasses, his eyes are missing.

Near the fountain is a large, wrought-iron statue of an archer, where... well, he's made his first kill, apparently. The body of a young girl with long dark hair is speared neatly through the chest by the archer's arrow, her little feet a good half a yard off the ground, now sticky with her blood. If you step closer to peer into the fountain, you'll find another body, this one a man with short dark hair, his face twisted into a mask of desperation and his gloved hands around his own throat as though he were gasping for air. Oddly, his lower jaw appears to be missing. Did he drown? There is no water in the fountain...

In the ornate chair on the platform is the body of another man, this one with his head completely removed from his shoulders. Oh... there it is, in his lap, his hands carefully arranged in his wild black hair. Wait, it seems there are too many hands, though! A second body dangles from a large tree that looms over the square, the rope frayed and dirty where it is wrapped around another man's neck, a strangely peaceful smile on his face, blue though it is. His hands rest atop the first man's, as though making certain the severed head remains still.

On the table in front of the chair rests a chest, its lid wide open and a glittering bounty inside.



If you peer inside, you will see a collection of eggs! Scaly, cool to the touch, and about the size of a football, they come in several colors. There is a note pinned to the inside of the trunk's lid--


Do you take an egg, as the note suggests? Dare you? (Dare you not?)

That pressing feeling in the back of your head has left you now, now that you are here to be welcomed to the city, now that you are here in the presence of your caretakers, but it is difficult to take comfort in the relief from the compulsion when surrounded by so much destruction. Who has done this to the faithful sentinels of the city? Who has killed the Watcher, the Interloper, the Guardian, the Nightingale, and the Keeper? Why have they been left here, at your welcoming home party?

Before you can turn to ask your neighbor, before you can wonder any further, a sound breaks the silence--a terrible, wet crunching noise like a sheet of ice breaking under your feet. You turn over your shoulder to see that it isn't anything so simple as ice. In the middle of the square is one final body, a body that wasn't there but a moment ago. She is small, thin, with dark hair and eerily pale eyes wide in terror. You know this girl, she met you on the elevator, expressed pleasure that you had been found (had you been lost?), and welcomed you home. Where did she come from? It's as though she simply... fell out of the sky! The Dreamer now dreams forever.

As you turn to survey the carnage all around you, a pleasant chiming sound seems to fill the air. It would seem that your mirror has a message for you! Upon inspection, you will find a new icon on the main viewscreen.


If you touch the icon, it will take you to a new application. Welcome to the Task Board! Here you will find a multitude of errands you can run for... whoever is running the city, now. Boy, what a way to announce things are under new management!

Welcome back to Theia, wayward children. Please enjoy the refreshments--watch out for the Nightingale's eyes, they may have fallen into the punch--get reacquainted with your friends and neighbors, and do take good care of those eggs. Or else...

Comments

[heartguard]

Blinking bright orange eyes at the scene laid out before her, Dinah slowly, deeply inhales the stench of so much rusted copper. Leaning forward, she laces her fingers behind her between the spear cleverly disguised as a parasol and her back and hums. As thick as the stench is, she had smelled it before her arrival in the square and anticipated something for her many and varied experiences as a Pawn of the Fellowship of the Hand -- that is, an agent and mercenary of that popular organization that traffics in the Awakened and preternatural world, to the point her gaze runs less along the lines of shocked and horrified and more level, curious if discerning. Carnage isn't so unfamiliar, but her focus rests on the stench, which is different, distinct now that she's present and able to properly weigh it against her memories. It's more than the innumerable, wafting particles she would've tasted in the wake of some battle and, at first glance, there doesn't appear to be any signs that one occurred, which makes this a willful, wanton massacre and, as she turns her eyes around the square in observation of the murders once again, something else for this polished presentation.

A message, perhaps? At a party in honor, in welcome, with this sort of attendance. It draws more questions, of course, and they carry weight for her care as to the meaning for her position in this increasingly bizarre game. As though that feeling hadn't been troubling enough. Had she really been so eager to come here? For answers, to get a better idea of the board, she could imagine, yes, but she bears it and stacking questions quietly in mind all the same.

Wordlessly, she moves forward, that youthful energy evident in every step, odd skip, and hop. Even when that sickening crunch sounds from behind, she presses on with little more than a jolt, a glance, and a mental note made for a concerning lack of presence to be grasped, intent to observe each and every corpse, to discern every possible detail despite her mirror's chime. Although gentle for her care in honoring their positions, she isn't particularly shy about touching the corpses. She is thorough, meticulous despite the sudden, odd changes in her speed as she dissects each corpse with her eyes and, having drawn the device from the backpack that hangs loosely from a shoulder, her mirror's camera function. It's when she comes to the corpse seated at the table that she drops low in observing his face and something like a frown tugs at her features. She lingers for a moment, then rises fluidly and turns only to pause again for the presence of that peculiar chest or, more aptly, for its eye catching content. Her head is tilted from side to side in weighing before she snaps a picture of the bunch, reaches out, plucks a yellow, football-sized egg from the chest, and tucks it under her free arm.

It's only then that she turns and, after a moment of balancing on the edge of it, hops almost gingerly from the stage to take a look at the last corpse. She nearly pauses mid-step for her recognition of the face and frame, skips, and drops onto the balls of her feet with undue quickness to observe the girl from the elevator, who had smiled and lied, been there with so much bright, blinding, wrong energy and gone. She's gone and it's a deep frown that colors her expression as she sweeps her eyes over the body and glances over her shoulder at the other corpses.

"This is really inconvenient," she muses to herself, taking a minute to stretch as she stands straight and checks her grip on the egg tucked under her arm. "If you're going to drag people into this sort of game, you should stay alive long enough to play with them properly."

Turning her eyes from the corpse at her feet, Dinah looks to the living and regards them for a long moment, then moves to claim a seat at one of the tables. Placing her backpack, the egg, and mirror down, she crosses her legs at her ankles and settles in to observe the other party goers, review the images she's collected, and explore the source of that curious chiming. It's almost funny, how much more complicated the board seems now. Almost, almost enough to see the knuckles of the hand enclosed about the mirror's handle turning white. 'Really inconvenient,' that's certainly putting it mildly.

[OOC: Please hit her permissions post up HERE if you haven't! ]

[foeyay]

Among the gathering of souls mulling in shock over strange corpses, Kamui spotted several more commanding presences mixed in. These were what interested Kamui, not the corpses themselves. The dead were worthless, after all. Only the living could fight back. These people, however, carried themselves with confidence even when surrounded by carnage. These people, he knew, were the strong ones.

One of these notable presences in particular surprised Kamui enough that he parted with his refreshments and sauntered his way over to her table. His own egg, of the speckled blue variety, was hitching a ride in the hood of his cloak while he basked in the shade of his parasol. There were still cookie crumbs on his face when he leaned over Dinah's shoulder.

"So what did you think? I saw you eyeing those corpses. You seemed pretty intense."

[heartguard]

Where the inattentive might have jumped, jolted, or yelped for nerves in the wake of this evidently panic inducing event, Dinah breathes as easily, as surely as though the person leaning over her shoulder is familiar company as opposed to a stranger. His presence had been difficult to miss in a curious sea of others for that same sense that she grasps now as she turns her head to meet his gaze almost eagerly with her own. His presence is a rarity in that it's strength in the physical sense and weighted, that sort of pure, unadulterated power that makes her wonder if she couldn't reach out and touch it close as he is now for how tangible it seems.

There's more to it, though. In that moment she locks gazes with him, she realizes it, that intensely focused, motivated energy and something else, something a bit deeper. Something concentrated, something simply, openly malevolent, yet different, like him. He's different and it's with a blink that she smiles at him openly, earnestly.

"It was a massacre," she says, reaching all too gingerly to procure a crumb or two off his face for sampling. "The air is too clean. There's no sign of a struggle, but the blood suggests it played out here. Nothing that suggests where the person or people responsible wandered off to, though."

She doesn't sound particularly thrilled about that last part as she tests those crumbs against her taste buds. What flavor is that...? Despite her pondering, her attention remains decidedly focused on her present company, about whom she doesn't get a civilian sense in the slightest.

"But you probably figured that, right?"

[foeyay]

Kamui blinked twice, because once simply wasn't enough to contain his speechlessness when she stole the crumbs from around his lips. Not only that, but now he wasn't the only person in murder square who was walking around with a smile. This girl... was kind of funny.

"Yup!" he confirmed airily. There was a huff in his tone that betrayed his indignant temperament, but it was overpowered by his reignited amusement. "You didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. This whole party has been an annoying waste of time. If the culprit isn't even going to greet us, then what's the point?"

[heartguard]

"I couldn't tell you," Dinah says, waving a hand in turn and glancing, for a moment, at the 'party' around them. "It's been one inconvenience after another and this seems like it's going to follow that pattern. I figure the corpses are supposed to be a message of some kind, but I'm more interested in meeting the person who left it."

There's a quiet edge there in her tone. Something subtle, but not wholly innocent that most assuredly sharpened with an emphasis on the word "meeting". She lifts herself just so from her seat in that moment, just enough to reach a distant plate of what appears to be some kind of cakes and tug it close enough for her to properly pluck those delights up at her leisure. Judging from her taste test, the cookies seemed like they might be worth trying, but she'd just as soon hold her seat for the moment and if the baker managed cookies, surely they'll have managed delicious cakes.

"I was thinking they might come back," she adds, plopping gently back into her seat. "That might be too convenient, though."

[foeyay]

"They could've at least spelled something out with the bodies..." Kamui sighed. This arbitrary placement of the corpses did nothing but advertise that the victims had been caught unawares. It was a murderer's modern art installation. "But if this is a message, then the culprit won't be showing their face anytime soon. If they were planning to grace us with their presence, they wouldn't need to leave a message in the first place. They'd just say whatever they wanted to in person."

[heartguard]

Dinah takes a bite of the cake she's plucked from the tray and chews thoughtfully, considering his words. He's right. If this is a message of some kind like she thinks, it's nearly guaranteed that the culprit won't be returning anytime soon. Messages are usually left or sent in someone's absence, after all, and what's done is done with the newly dead with directions delivered to the living that's brought them to this point. Her lips pucker, then twist to one side as though she's tasted something sour despite the sweetness assailing her taste buds.

"It would be another lofty inconvenience," Dinah swallows with those words, pausing. "It does suggest planning, though. If they're planning on inviting us to another party, I hope it's better than this one, but... I guess it isn't a complete loss."

[foeyay]

Dinah was eating cake. Kamui quickly decided he needed to be eating cake too. He picked up his own and shoved the entire thing into his mouth. By the time Dinah finished talking, he was reaching for a second one.

"Not for us anyway. The guy behind this hit the end of his road the moment he invited me."

[heartguard]

Orange eyes flicker from the cake to Kamui and regard him for a moment. The corners of Dinah's mouth tug upward in short order. It's almost funny how that loss seems to be shrinking before her eyes. It seems she really has met an interesting person.

"Who are you?"

[foeyay]

"I'm Kamui."

He bowed his head only slightly as he licked one last crumb off his thumb. When he lifted his head once more, he met Dinah eye to eye. Those focused blues narrowed sharply, but Kamui's grin widened. This girl wasn't nervous or outraged or even vaguely frustrated. If anything, she seemed flush with intrigue.

He wanted to know how strong she was. He really wanted to know right now. So he raised a dirty hand to shake with hers.

"And I think I want to fight you."

[osakanpride]

Heiji had taken the time to inspect the most recent body to drop by. He crouched closer to the floor to get an up close look. The detective was bothered how effortlessly it was seemingly brought in without anyone noticing it until it was already there. Even him, who was attentive to detail and kept a keen outlook on his surroundings. His blue gaze shifted up, to search for anything that might have come by or if anything arched above head.

"She might have been the messenger." It was a guess, of sorts. Since their time together was brief, and she was already dead before they got any answers. A scenario Heiji was familiar with from previous cases. The girl likely lived up to her usefulness, and she was disposed of to prevent any information being leaked. Unfortunately for the culprit, the dead still carried answers.

After practically crawling about the scene where the body rested, Heiji shifted back onto his feet.

[heartguard]

"Maybe," Dinah offered, lifting her eyes from her communication device and halting mid-tap as she considers Heiji's words. "When I first met that girl, it was in the elevator when I was brought here. She mentioned a 'we' multiple times when she was spewing that nonsense about me 'running away' and people bringing me 'home'. Five plus one makes a 'we,' and let's not forget that 'we' brought us here to begin with and prepared a place for us somehow with intimate knowledge about us. If those five are part of her 'we,' then it doesn't bode well for us that they're dead."

Her egregious abuse of air quotes at its end for the moment, she props an elbow on the table and drops her cheek into her hand. Her eyes wander curiously toward the refreshments just out of reach.

"Murdered at a party they seem to have been setting up to host for us maybe. I don't think their positions are staged either," she adds, shifting to lean and pluck what appears to be some kind of pastry from a plate. "I know bodies and there's too much blood for that."

[osakanpride]

"That's where I first encountered her, too. She told me the same things." If they were to survey the rest of the 'party' goers, Heiji would assume that's how everyone met her, which only cemented his theory in her role.

"An average human body carries around 4.7 to 5.5 liters of blood. The bodies don't exhibit signs severe blood loss as a cause of death, so the excess blood must have a different source." It could even be the blood of animals, sometimes pigs blood commonly. Or even worse, it could be the blood of other humans whose bodies aren't currently present. "Some of the bodies don't correspond respectively to the trauma on their bodies." Like the one in the fountain.

"Among other things..."

[heartguard]

Ah, there's the discrepancy. Dinah takes a bite of the pastry she's plucked from the plate and chews, thoughtful as she focuses and grasps Heiji's presence, his energy. There's nothing particularly special about it. It's average, distinctly human, and most probably that of a Dormant being by her reckoning. If that's the case, well --

"I don't think they're human," she states the words plainly, swallowing only to take another bite of her pastry. "And I don't think whoever did this is human either."

Chewing, she pauses and waits and with a distinct calm about her.

[dark_rescue]

Lea can't help but snort a laugh at the girl's remark, ambling toward the table where she has taken a seat. He's been observing everyone at this little get together for the past several minutes, and he has to admit, the reactions to the situation have been... entertaining, to say the least. He can't say he was unaffected by the gruesome scene in the square, but watching everyone else freak out about it hasn't been disappointing, at least.

"Inconvenient?" he echoes, stepping up beside the girl, his thumbs hooked in his pockets. "Not quite the word I would have gone with, but I guess it isn't untrue."

[heartguard]

"Our best lead is dead on the ground over there and there's five bodies with it that could make up the 'we' I recall her mentioning during her 'brought you home' spiel."

Dinah looks up from her mirror in none too big of a hurry, delivering one last final swipe across its surface as she turns her head to find and meet the gaze of the person who's approached her. It's another very curious presence that she grasps now. He's strong, strong and tinged by a wisp of something dark. More than that wisp of darkness, he's heat and flame and it becomes him as much as he is distinctly human with that strange sort of weight about his energy. Blinking once, twice, she smiles. Can't quite stifle something of a laugh for his words.

"What in the world would you call it?"

[dark_rescue]

Oh yes, he's familiar with the concept of the We Brought You Home speech, but 'inconvenient' isn't really the first word that comes to mind when he looks over the scene in the square.

"Unfortunate," he ventures, counting off fingers, "unexpected, unsettling... I could probably come up with a few more." He scratches the back of his neck. "I'm sure 'inconvenient' would wind up on there somewhere, but it didn't make my top five."

Well, at least she laughed. Everyone here at this so-called party seems to have left their sense of humor at home, and he guesses he can't really indict them too much, given the situation, but in his experience, it's much easier to continue forward if you're laughing about the shit that's currently hitting the fan.

He purses his lips and puts a hand against his chin.

"Guess it's time to elect a new mayor," he says, not entirely seriously.

[heartguard]

Dinah drops her head almost lazily to one side as she regards the scene around them once more as though in consideration. Slowly, she lifts a hand and slants it, alternating the 'head' of the slant up, down, up down in an almost mechanical fashion.

"Eh. I'll give you unfortunate within reason and unexpected, too, but it's not that unsettling to me. I've seen worse as it was happening," she offers, and with a distinct lack of sympathy for the dead should he be looking for it as she turns her gaze back to him. "'Inconvenient' really does cover all that and I'd rather leave elections to the citizens of this place if there are any. That's their responsibility."

It's not hers because she's not a citizen of this city no matter what dribble anyone tries to shove down her throat. And, really, who's to blame if they're not mindful of her teeth? Not that she can take credit for this, but she keeps them sharpened all the same.

[dark_rescue]

Lea scrunches his face a little. It's not that it's unsettling because he's never seen death before--quite to the contrary, he's probably seen more than his fair share of horrible things--it's merely that... well, what's going to happen now?

"Seems we're the citizens of this place, though," he points out with a shrug of one shoulder. "Whether or not you want to believe we've always been here, I haven't seen a single person thus far who wasn't brought back by these poor folks here." He gestures to the bodies. "I'm certainly not volunteering to be in charge, though," he adds, folding his arms. "Too much responsibility, man."

Whatever he's been through, whatever he knows, he is not here to babysit a bunch of strangers.

[heartguard]

Dinah allows her gaze to follow his gesture toward the bodies, where it lingers for a good, solid moment. Her eyes flicker back to the redhead in short order as she listens to his words. That insistence that they're the citizens of this place is grating for her inclusion in it and she shakes her head once, twice, three times with such strength that her ribboned tails fly. There are certain things she can and would accept aloud, having decided to play this game, but to call herself a citizen of this place is practically a permission in keeping her as far as she's concerned. If it were the Fae behind this, and she's sure it's not for a lack of a great deal many cues, such an admittance would be the equivalent of signing one's life away. Whoever's behind this, she'd just as soon not present them with any irrefutably given claim.

"I'm not and I've got my passport," she says, and firmly. "What makes you so sure elections need to be held, anyway? Someone's taken it upon themselves to do something here."

What and why remains to be seen, but that much is clear as far as she's concerned. That odd compulsion, the arrival of so many people at one time... something is very right and worthy of suspicion for that many more questions raised with a dead lead.