May Event Log A: The Song of Suffering.

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🜙 Mod Note
	The Song of Suffering's resolution is jointly dependent on the choices all our players make (Who will take charge of the city?) and on the resolution of the Return to Einjar excursion. After you have read through this post please respond to This Poll as soon as you feel comfortable making the choices in it. Please respond even if your character is not participating in this event as the choice made effects the game world/all players.
🜙 First Blood April 26th
	In the late afternoon a challenge is made over the courier by Captain Lykos challenging the 'King' to come and properly fight him for control of the Defenders the way the old orc custom the Defenders were built on demands. In the message, he calls Koroc a coward and a thief, unfit for his role in the Defenders and unprepared to handle the even larger role he has claimed for himself. He accuses Koroc of not even trying to manage the werewolf curse he and Lykos share and says he may be to blame for Koroc's affliction, but Koroc's reckless endangerment of the city is to blame for the rise in werewolf attacks on the city. Lykos sets the battleground as King Ardis' camp outside of the city, a neutral ground away from the citizens who could get hurt in the crossfire. An enraged, Koroc takes a large group of his Defenders' newest forces out of the city to lead an attack on the former Captain and the invading King Ardis supporting him only to find the camp deserted of anyone but Lykos. The discussion between Lykos and Koroc appears publically on the couriers within the city, and everyone with a courier is treated to the impromptu visual of their meeting and the fight that follows it. Lykos gets Koroc to admit to working with the cult and imprisoning and using werewolves to attack the city, as well as implicating both himself and Koroc as werewolves as well before the feed ends, and the abrupt ending leaves the fate of the former captain uncertain.
Lykos Alice Lorna Ardis Koroc Cult Leader
🜙 Children of the Revolution April 26th-May ??
	With clear evidence now out that Koroc and the Defenders are not only working with some form of undead in their ranks, but also that both Koroc and Lykos are werewolves, Koroc's allies, Lorna's rebels, the strange travelers, and King Ardis's soldiers are all spurred into action, bringing the fight for the City of the Free People to a final confrontation for power. The city splits, rallying behind different sides in the battle. The battle encompasses the city streets and spills out into the surrounding land to the South and West of the city. The Defenders, their numbers padded with risen soldiers, hold the city. From within the rebels and the strange travelers fight the Defenders to force them out fo the city streets. Alice, Amy, and a small force of armed civilians and former revels focus on getting people out of the battle zones, teleporting people out where possible and defending them in an escape route out of the city with larger groups, while outside the city King Ardis and his knights storm the warcamp and put pressure on the Defenders, helping to clear a path out of the city. As the fighting overtakes the city another terrible set of howls sounds from the West beyond the city, and a pair of creatures join the fray. The white one assaults the city with unbridled destructive rage while the red one seems fixated on the people, hunting like a starved beast without pausing to feast on its downed prey. The beasts are unaffected by silver, wolfsbane, and other standard werewolf weaknesses and stand at around eleven feet tall, nearly twelve when straight-backed. They are closer to the size of a small swamp troll than an ordinary werewolf, their eyes glowing blue. The protrusions coming off of them are hardened bone and sharp enough to cause damage equivalent to spearheads or daggers if used to attack. Bites/Scratches from these creatures do not inflict any curses. They do not seem to fear anything but also appear to be mindlessly enraged. At different times during the onslaught from the mutated wolves a large white wolf appears, drawing the monsters away from fleeing citizens and members of all sides of the struggle, outrunning and distracting the creatures.
🜙 The Song of Suffering April 28th-May ??
	Two days later an unsettling prophetic orc threat from the not so distant past begins to ring true. The river that flows from the Northern mountains down through the City of the Free People begins to sing with ringing, echoing hums and runs red with a dark, thick liquid that looks like blood and smells like copper and rust. The touch of sound or liquid begins sending citizens into fits of raw, violent, amplified emotions. The fight for the city devolves into one of almost directionless, desperate violence and begins to lose what little point or meaning it had, spurred on by a madness that latches on to everyone within earshot or touch of the river and its endless ringing song. People quickly begin to change in more than just mood. Paranoia, Fury, or Desperation overtake them, causing mental and physical changes that reflect the emotion. More than one reflection can overtake people and while the infected waters remain so do the symptoms. Reflection Cause & Symptoms ⤛ Paranoia Caused by exposure to the ringing song of suffering. The sound of the ringing roots out and pulls to the surface every negative, lingering, violent, uncertain, or angry thought the person has had toward or about others and amplifies it, transforming emotions over a simple comment or fleeting thought into defined certainty and righteous fury. Twisting even the clear-minded or pacifistic until they are willing to kill others to protect themselves or those they are defending. While under Paranoia's influence they are beset by an unquenchable thirst and hunger, but no other physical symptoms. The only way to 'cure' someone affected is to disable their hearing or relocate them far enough from the river that the ringing can no longer be heard. ⤛ Fury Caused by any physical exposure to the water itself. Contact with the liquid causes a surge of wild, furious power that infects those it overtakes with a fury that is not their own. This fury is undirected and will cause the affected to lash out at anything near them, living or non-living. Once a target has been found they will not stop until that target is dead or completely destroyed. While under Fury's influence their skin begins to harden and grey starting at the hands and their strength, physically and magically, doubles. Fury can only be cleansed by fresh water or light magic. ⤛ Desperation Caused by ingesting the water or prolonged exposure to the water. If submerged, the person will find their vision quickly adjusting to the water and if they open their eyes they will feel as if something is looking back at them from the depths, reaching out to them. Once they emerge from the water or cease drinking the water they will either see or feel the thick coating of red liquid that does not drip or move, clinging heavily to their skin or muscles. The liquid seeps into their skin or muscles and their eyes turn bloodshot and then solid red. While under Desperation's influence their eyes remain solid red and their movements become sluggish with erratic bursts of speed and wild strength. Until they are doused with fresh water or light magic they will be consumed by desperation and singularly focused on their last goal or thought as if letting go of it would kill them. Without direction or a goal to latch onto the desperation becomes a consuming need to stop the noise and fighting around them through any means possible. 🜙 Top ⤛ Navigation

Comments

[exaomori]

Ow?? Ow??? Shura yells, because damn it, this hurts like a son of a bitch. It's been a long time since she's been injured this badly, and the last time she got hurt, she still had those awesome regenerative powers. So this, right in the middle of the chaos and rage and anger flooding the streets, is a really bad thing. If she can't defend herself against any of the other crazy idiots roaming around--

Well, no matter. She'd worry about that later. Shura has no doubt that Billie was capable of breaking bones with that jaw, so it's time to just try stabbing the hell out of her like this and hope she can throw her off before it was too late.

[redwhaling]

Shura isn't wrong about that. Her jaws are more than capable of it and she hangs on for a few more shanks to the side, reflexively clamping down and digging in harder with every stab, but sooner than later? The pain is too much. She finally lets go with an upsetting, wet-sounding cough and vanishes one final time, her weight leaving Shura's back as she goes.

There's another crash further in the room, where she's ended up. Some dark corner near broken windows, though once there she doesn't make a rush for Shura again, opting to lay where she's landed, breathing heavily and glaring wildly across the room at the woman.

[exaomori]

Definitely not a good noise for Billie to be making. On the other hand, she's clearly off her rocker at this point, so maybe this would be mercy.

Leaving her half-dead and thoroughly stabbed isn't good enough, though. Shura needs to finish her off. Billie can come back as angry as she wants; biting it temporarily was better than living like a real rat. But Shura's just barely able to lift herself off the ground, and she has to use Fang to haul herself up on her knees. This is enough. A chill begins to fill the air as Shura draws on the scale's power. One last shot, and it had to count. That's okay, she can do this

[redwhaling]

She can do this, which is what Billie has realized. She isn't winning this fight. This time, rather than charging in again or trying to teleport somewhere for the advantage, she bares her teeth and hisses one last time, still bubbling with anger even as she bleeds out.

From there, it's an effort to move, but she still whirls around in the corner she's in and throws herself at the window instead. The glass already gapes open brokenly from some prior damage, meaning it's simple enough for a rat to get through, a little less simple for an injured one but a few more cuts and scratches from glass goes unheeded as she wriggles through to the outside.

[exaomori]

She's running. She could let her. Shura knows she had stabbed her plenty o f times, one of those hits might have struck something important. Billie could just go on and bled out on her own. But that would be a crappy way to die, and even worse, she could not die! She could go on and get caught eating another corpse by someone who would be more troublesome to deal with in the long run than Shura.

So Shura takes a swing, letting out another blast of cold air. It's not as strong as it needs to be to finish Billie off; Shura just doesn't have that much strength left in her.

[redwhaling]

The blast of air hits the window just as Billie finishes scrambling through it, falling out of sight to the other side. What glass that remained shatters and the window frame shakes from the blow, but the shiftling herself does not make a reappearance once outside.

She has places to go bleed out in and things to definitely not do, it just seems doing any of that here isn't on the the agenda.