EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: Concordia - VEN DIAGRAMS HQ + BOUT IT OUT PARLOR + BEARINGS APARTMENT BLOCK
WHEN: Late Day :022 + Early Day :023
SUMMARY: The results of all your hard work - for better or worse. One win, one draw, one loss. Anakin Skywalker bites the big one.
WARNINGS: Violence, non-graphic character death.

IT’S BEEN A LONG DAY. Unfortunately, that’s not about to change any time soon. In the late hours of the evening, two things are happening: the final round of the Bout It Out expose between Kun-Kun and The Darkling is spooling up; meanwhile, the infiltration team at Ven Diagrams is working to retrieve information on H+H1 from the company’s security drive. Unfortunately, neither is going to reach the natural conclusion.

At the REGAL STREET GAMING PARLOR, emotions are running high. After a long day of simulation violence and the reveal of Kun-Kun’s new automaton fighting avatar, the crowd has been stoked to a few pitch. The music’s loud but the crowd is louder: cheering and booing, shouting for every landed or evaded strike. There’s an electric pulse of excitement in the air-- and then there’s a very literal one as an electromagnetic pulse rocks the Regal Street Parlor. The Bout It Out ring shorts and the entire parlor is pitched into total, window-less darkness. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for the crowd’s excitement to melt into panic. Pushing, shoving, shouting - a piercing shriek as one of Kun-Kun’s representatives is stabbed. The nearby hosts (Lexa, Sam Alexander, and anyone in their faux attachment) should be able to help Kun-Kun and his reps to safety, but the crush of the crowd tangles up everyone else. When a rudimentary bomb goes off in the center of the parlor, it catches plenty of people in the crossfire.

There’s a white hot flash. A pulse of heat. A sizzle of agony. It’s a pain that guts, that persists long after the flash of the bomb and extends all the way to the infiltration team at Ven Diagrams. It’s like a limb badly severed. Anakin Skywalker is killed by the blast and every host knows it before they’re aware of anything else.

Unluckily for the infiltration team, they won’t have much time to recover. News of the bombing hits Extraspace in a matter of seconds, which triggers Ven Diagrams - paranoid from the recent attack on their own properties - to lock down their headquarters. All systems are tightened and security clamps down before the infiltration team can access the private servers. If you’re somewhere you’re not supposed to be, now’s the time to get the hell out of dodge.

Retreat, regroup. Upon returning to the Bearings apartment block, the hosts will find that two of their previously comatose friends have woken up: Hux and Aoba Seragaki will probably need to be briefed on the current situation.

     I. THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS
In the Regal Street Gaming Parlor, a pulse flashes. Electronics sizzle. A fight reaching rhythm is shattered and darkness consumes the parlor in its entirety. There’s something like a collective inhale - and then the panic sets in. Screaming. Pushing. Elbows in the dark and a wave of bodies forcing their way toward wherever they think the exit is. Parlors like this one are supposed to be shielded from this kind of problem, but today that doesn’t matter. In just a few short moments of panic, a bomb - basic compared to the one that blew out the Ven Diagram warehouse only days ago - goes off.

There’s a buzz. An electrical hiss. In the wake of the explosion - in the wake of the agony of Anakin’s death -, the parlor’s fire systems go off flooding the upper and lower levels, the spectator balconies with flame retardant powder and coolant. The emergency lighting kicks on, throwing the carnage into stark fluorescent light. The probable intended victim has escaped, along with his entourage, but there are plenty of wounded - groans and weeping permeate the chemical stale air. In addition to Anakin, three people have been killed and two androids have been rendered into scrap by the explosion. Countless others could use help; maybe even a few other hosts have been wounded by the blast.

     II. MEANWHILE...
If you’re part of the infiltration team, you’ve officially overstayed your welcome. Security tightens to a chokehold; if you’re somewhere you shouldn’t be, it’s time to leave. An alarm blares through the development laboratories. The building is evacuated and then sealed throughout. The powerlifts cease operation. All networked systems go offline.

     III. FROM THE JAWS OF DEFEAT
Back at the parlor, the evacuation continues. The parlor is half-collapsed, there are injured to tend to and local authorities to deal with. In a matter of minutes, the the parlor is swarmed by public security and medical personnel. If you’re able bodied, you’re welcome to assist with rescue efforts - or try to find a lead on who could’ve been responsible for this. Some evidence, some sign - anything to make this worth it. During this time those with Kun Adetokunbo will have the chance to make their case.

It’s a long, protracted clean up and triage; it’s absolutely possible that some of the infiltration team members might make it to the site of the explosion to assist or care for their friends. 

     IV. WE TEND OUR WOUNDED, WE COUNT OUR DEAD
In the early hours of the morning on Day 023, the hosts limp back to Bearings. Maybe it should be achingly quiet, but it’s not - there’s a murmur of activity in the mental air as Hux and Aoba muddle out of their way from out of their comas. From here, it’s up to to the hosts to recover, to discuss how they want to proceed, and come up with a way to recover from this setback - and from Anakin’s death.

---

((OOC NOTES: Here it is, your wrapup log for the event! You may have noticed that the Hosts didn’t succeed at the Ven Diagrams infiltration. We thought this was a better way than asking everyone to handwave a huge amount of plot or simply having the NPCs get the evidence. Don’t worry though - there will be other mysteries to unravel soon. Very soon, in fact.

There will be an NPC top-level for the escape with Kun-Kun, but otherwise you’re free to make your own top levels! If you have any questions please feel free to ask them in the event OOC post.

Thanks everyone!))

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Comments

[unsea]

[ ( Besides Alina, there stands a young man. Boring, short-lived. A skilled tracker, her childhood beloved but oh, he'd die long before she did, and yet he fashioned himself her weapon. A good little knight. ) -- the words stir up a shred of tedium, surrounding this able-bodied tracker that Alina prefers, but it doesn't seem that the Darkling weighs Bellamy against him. ALIE's words aside, there is another he knows that begs consideration, when he reminisces on what Bellamy Blake is made of.

Why, he wants to know. He wants to know so many things, and what he wants to know most is - complex. There is no appropriate place to begin, to best convey the answer Bellamy seeks. To begin with what he is? To begin at the most recent trial and work backwards? To begin before even his birth, when Illya Morozova was penning his madness onto paper? It's heavy conversation, perhaps best left for a time when Bellamy is not so ill and tired.

Yet, even here - a foundation could be laid for that inevitable future: ] How old do you think I am?

[deployed]

[ Bellamy's brows furrow into a frown. It seems a strange question, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Nova's the smallest of them all, and the rest didn't seem to matter. Old enough that Bellamy hadn't given the matter any consideration. His grip on the Darkling's hand flexes; it's the most movement Bellamy can manage without the world tilting around him right now. ]

Older than me, [ Bellamy says, decisive. ] Not by very much, I don't think.

[ Though most of the time Bellamy felt ancient, like his life had stretched on and on. It already encompassed too much tragedy and death for only twenty-three years breathing. He can feel the images projected from the Darkling's thoughts rattling in his head, sinking in and settling as Bellamy looks up at him. ]

Does that matter?

[unsea]

Mm, only by a hundred years. Give or take, [ "give or take", he says, with soft amusement in his voice. There is far more than a century dividing the two of them. Perhaps little more than half of a millennia, were he to count the days, one after another. He stopped counting, after a while. After generations of otkazat'sya families came and went before his eyes.

His thumb finds the ridge of Bellamy's knuckles, as his hand flexes, and presses there. A pinpoint of firm contact, meant to be reassuring. ]

In the context of answering "why", it is. She'll live as long as I have, though right now - she's barely older than you. She'll outlive generations, they'll resent her youth and beauty, they'll fear her. She loathes me, now, because I have seen the history of our people. And because what I... did and would do for their future.

[ He loves them. Tired and sad, and wicked all the same - his people. He feels very similarly for his brood. They're his now. They're all his. ]

[deployed]

[ The application of pressure makes Bellamy's breath catch, stuttering in his chest. It's a welcome sensation, comforting and anchoring at once, reminding him of where they are before he slips too far into the Darkling's memories. His eyes find the Darkling's, studying him for a long moment as he absorbs the concept of how ancient he is. It feels incongruous, when faced when that youthful face. ]

How do you stand it?

[ Bellamy's voice has gone raw. ]

How do you stand knowing she hates you?

[ The bright spill of Clarke's hair has given way to Octavia's cold fury and the slam of her fists, opening wounds on Bellamy's face. She hated him. Maybe they all hated him. They had every right to.

What I did and would do for their future is a familiar refrain. It's a sentiment Bellamy knows well and has lived by, still does live by. But knowing that what he'd done had been the wrong choice and had sparked such hatred in the people he loved, it ate at him. If the Darkling had lived so long, maybe he'd figured out how to make room for that weight so it didn't crush him alive. ]

[unsea]

[ Bellamy's thoughts return to his sister in due time, brought around as all thoughts are - full circle. Her anger. The way that he rationalizes the thought of her anger, her hate - the hate of others. He's too young. Versed in facing the knowledge that he will be unliked, mistrusted. Comfort is cold, never will quite reach. Bellamy wants to know how to handle that - no, he wants to know if it's even possible to handle that? The Darkling cannot tell, and he breathes out. Terse, thoughtful. The sick feeling in his stomach has been abating, the longer he keeps Bellamy tucked away where it is cool and dark. ]

Because, I knew I was doing the right thing for our people. And one day, she would have understood, [ there's no doubt within him, that he could have been wrong. ]

Reconciling the decisions that you make, with how people will regard you is always a challenge, Bellamy. Either you become their tyrant, or their sin-eater.

[deployed]

[ Would Octavia ever understand? They were alike, the pair of them; forgiveness was a challenge, and what Bellamy had done was a sin beyond any they'd weathered. He remembers Clarke's face, bewildered and accusing as she'd snapped, You let Pike ruin everything. He hadn't believed her then, but the thought had gained traction in the wake of Lincoln's death. He couldn't tell if it was the right thing. He'd thought it was, but maybe he'd been wrong. ]

What's a sin-eater?

[ To avoid the question of what was right for his people, what Clarke and Octavia would and would not have understood. Maybe it shouldn't matter. He'd never see them again. There would be no family but this one, the brood whose thoughts and emotions bleed unwelcomed into his own. Bellamy sighs, lips parting, unable to close himself from the comfort of the Darkling's mind even as he names it an interloper. ]

[unsea]

It is a person, and it is a tradition, [ something old and superstitious, beyond the realms of the sainted and sanctified. Practiced in wildlands, where the modern faithful could not reach. The people of his country, in their earliest history - before Ravka had a monarchy, a political center, when they were tribe and village - used to practice it. Before the Istorii Sankt'ya was properly codified with the rank and file of every saint great and small.

With deceptively tender fingers, he brushes a dark shock of hair from Bellamy's brow and takes a look at his eyes. He does not seem as stricken by his illness now, perhaps just tired instead. A long day, a hard day, would leave him feeling that for some time. ]

A sin-eater would take the wickedness of the dead upon themselves, absolving the soul of the dead so that they could rest in peace. As time went on, the sin-eater became someone who would... absolve the living of the same. They made difficult choices, shouldered the many's burdens. And in the end, they were often hated, rejected and killed by those who had been kept safe, and purified by their sacrifice.

[ Sin-eaters were among the first Sanktya, before saints were a concept in the Ravkan tradition. ]

"And for thy peace I pawn my own soul."