Mascerata Regia [Open]

[Finn]

The platinum lyrist only had so much attention to spare for guests and attempting to unmask them by their behavior and other cues. At least he knew how Arvælyn would present, and he had plenty to occupy his eyes and his mind between entertaining and enthusing the crowds and impressing the tambour-wielding flower girl who followed in his wake.

Finn had maintained his aplomb even when light speared down upon one person who was summarily wrenched from the anonymity to notoriety before the partygoers. He felt a pang for the person, but really, if they had any experience at these sorts of affairs, they should know better.

He felt safer for having the Sentinels and Guards working hand-in-glove. If he couldn't be at Arvælyn's side, at least he could rely upon his brethren among the Vigilia, and now he knew firsthand how well the Luxian warriors acquitted themselves against danger. Even so, his eyes often sought ought the Sun Scion, wondering if Varvara Herself might not fancy tumbling him in the sheets in such splendor. Finn wouldn't mind terribly, assuming he was allowed to wa—

Though his own rune was blocked from full activation, he could sense the ripples in the slipspace. As his gaze swept toward his fiancé, he caught three aberrations, and saw one of them stab His Starlit Highness, saw His Exalted Higness fling another away (with some collateral damage), and saw a mysterious figure in platinum and white observe all this take place.

Finn was already moving. He didn't even notice Lystreia following on whatever impulses drove the woman. He was unarmed and unarmored, but there were powers given unto him that even his fellow Sentinels might have trouble blocking. And so, as his voice boomed out with all the mesmeric power he was allowed for plying his art, but granted further weight as his brow began to glow with a golden halo. It had worked for Phocion against the voidborn; perhaps it would work for Finn against this intruder.

"YIELD," he demanded of the hooded figure.

[Hilana Chenzira]

The three of them, along with Lykos’ masked sentinel escorts that were never far off so far, enjoyed the music on the dance floor. Lia started easily with the northern demigod, and the steps and lessons of the more courtly, acceptable dances, were paying off. Despite the fabric, the elder sister moved easily, and it might well have been assisted by the Enmesh spell from her Elementalism repertoire. Hilana, with the darker dress and her lace mask, was perfectly happy to stay right by them, though she would certainly let the Sentinels cut in to stay close, maintain the subterfuge, and make things look less conspicuous.

When the figure appeared with the two that resembled His Serene Starlit Highness, Hilana paused. That was unexpected, but perhaps this was one of the surprises of the evening that was planned? She glanced to her sister and Lykos, and when Raithen’s dancing partner was stabbed and another attacked, Lia backed up towards her sister, pulling Lykos with her. Not planned. And if it was, this was a very strange, risky endeavour.

Practiced eyes saw where the blade was and automatically HIlana visualized the anatomy, frowning behind her mask. When Raithen shattered the exquisitely-crafted ceiling and took off through it, the Vastiana sisters were ready to catch the glass and move it to the side… only for the battle-trained mages guards to have already done so. “Occultatio. Integumentum Obscurum.” Hilana’s words were quiet, but firm, as she concealed herself, Lykos, and Lia. She allowed the two of them, along with the two sentinels with them to part the umbra of protection so that they knew where they were, but hopefully for everyone else, for better or for worse, they could avoid attention.

“Just stay quiet. This is not a good place or time to stand out,” Lia offered a gentle word of warning to Lykos, squeezing his arm. “It is best to stay hidden until we know what’s going on.”

“Stay close,” Hilana’s eyes were on the assailants, and her gaze was drawn to the central one. She did not expect any success, but she elected to try anyway: her focus was on the cloaked figure, and she attempted to Unmask them. It was a gamble that the Divine magic granted to her from the gift of the Bride of Bridles could part through the protections of the figure, but it was, if anything, worth a shot.

[Rickter]

While he had expected the festivities of the night to continue in their own suspenseful way, Lykos would never have anticipated what a royal show the masquerade would soon take on. Before his offer for either of the sisters had been answered, the startling disruption that transpired quickly gave cause for alert moments after.

Literally everyone who attended reacted as those involved were met with a resolution of magical spells, aetheric currents rippled throughout the air in a fashion which the lupine demigod could smell it throughout the room. This was indeed a state of chaos now, one that led his companions to react as Hilana sought to mask their presence from the rest of the crowd. Finn's overpowering voice carried the weight of his Boon when the wolf heard the words spoken, and while Lykos himself felt inclined to act on everyone's behalf; it had been deigned better to step back and refrain from doing so.

Perhaps because he was intended to remain as such, a closely guarded secret until one such member of the Zalkyrian dynasty deemed otherwise. Lykos couldn't certainly sniff the Exalted Prince out at the current moment, nevertheless, that didn't stop his instincts from nearly shuffling into overdrive the moment he felt danger present among the attendees of the Mascerata Regia. And while there was a certainty that Hilana's own enchanted tools would allow their presence to remain minimal, the wolf felt ever more inclined to guarantee that became an absolute if necessary.

"Understood..." He quickly yet quietly murmured to the Vastiana sisters as they drew closer to him, a bit of a protective lean over them found in his posture as the witchmarks on his skin glimmered in tandem. Soft lights that mimicked the pattern of fallen snowflakes on his skin indicated where his Negation rune used to reside, as a subtle flicker of his aether beckoned at the ready should he have needed to weave a barrier or ward into reality. Until then he remained close to his packmates, determined to keep them and their entourage fully protected, not that he didn't think the Sentinels were without their own reinforcements as well.

Admittedly, while he remained at the ready to react as necessary, and exercised discipline on behalf of those present, Lykos observed to see just what exactly was unfolding within the ballroom.

[Pharaoh]

► Show Spoiler

The Arkænyn whose attempt upon the Sun Scion had been rebuffed, was stricken enough by Palæros sally to be forced backward, but he caught himself as his right foot fell backward and found anchoring purchase.

Meanwhile, gritting his teeth, Arvælyn felt his back slam into another body. His outspread wings, seeming to glitch into view as his concentration upon the Craft of Masquerade faltered as his focus shifted toward different Runes. As he poised himself to strike out at whomever seemed to be grappling him, he was halted at the sense of his Symphony and the sound of his voice.

“Aurin?!” He exclaimed incredulous, but this was no moment for fond overdue reunions. There was still an assailant before him in fine armour of runeforged platinum, sneering toward the Lunar Lad who, while still reeling from the Kinetic burst that unsteadied both of them, would see one of the twin daggers in this Arkænyn’s hands vanish, only to feel it a fraction of a second later as it buried itself in his back.

“Yield, or I’ll pull it the rest of the way through you.” Commanded Arkænyn’s familiar voice but, lacking his Aurisian accent, this doppelgänger spoke his order perfect High Vastian.

As glass shattered overhead, the security team was fully engaged in the response. The shards were caught in the air as they fell and suspended under the eldritch light as beautiful as some æther sculpture of a starry night. Some Golden Guards and other Sentinels revealed themselves to be capable of bypassing the wards against Traversion and others took to the air launching themselves with Kinetics to alight near the threats, as the mysterious assailants were soon surrounded. Kinetic fields were conjured to sequester the three intruders as more and more security forces moved to surround them and fortify their kinetic confinements.

The tall Aværyan Guard who had broadly announced Vyxis’ shame let out a roar as he bounded toward the Arkænyn who’d struck down the Chained Swain, a longsword appearing in his hands.

“This one is mine!” He growled as, on the dance floor below, Finn had begun launching toward the hooded figure in the snowy white cloak. Sensing his hostile intent as he bounded toward her, the Solar Sovereign gazed up from under her hood and looked deep into his Symphony. There she quickly located and latched onto a memory of trauma- a broken lute and a broken face. The taste of blood and the sound of vitriolic epithets. There was one thing missing to make it serviceable and to her purposes and she would add that motif herself- His amatus. Into Finn’s Symphony she altered his trauma to render it empathetic. Rather than befalling Finn himself, Finn would sense this attack befalling Arvælyn as he’d been then: No sturdy Dragonborn, but a wispy elf being battered before his eyes whilst he watched helplessly— able to do no more than access his Symphony to feel the pain as his own; unable to assuage it. She would draw this modified memory to the forefront of his mind even as he uttered his Empyreal command.

Elsewhere as Raithen lay down the wounded body he’d collected from the ballroom, he would find it change before his eyes as Arkænyn pulled an enchanted bracer from his wrist and let it clank to the roof beside him. The Chained Swain had, it seemed, been a more concealing costume than it had initially appeared. In Arkænyn’s place, Raithen would find a Moonborn of some prominence he would recognise as a lordling named Victrian who was a member of Arkænyn’s court. Raithen knew him in passing as a fellow libertine, albeit a devout Sanguinist from a Luxian senatorial family.

“Anywhere…” He rasped, “To anyone who can help…” He begged, wincing and writhing against the pain that wracked his slender body.

Thalya cringed, as the weight of Finn’s command overtook her formidable will. Perhaps she now plied Crafts against which even the potent magi of Solunarium were ill-equipped to offset, but she had no way of defending against an Empyreal commandment. She was only fortunate that the high-sighted human left her so much room for interpretation. Yield she would, glancing to her two comrades, each of them shifted before the eyes of the many onlookers surrounding them. Within their Kinetic cages they went translucent, then transparent as they phased out of this realm into the safety of one of its many mirrors. The dagger in Æros’ back disappeared with its wielder and, as it did, turned the plugged wound into an open one and blood began to gush forth. The onslaught on Finn’s Symphony likewise dissipated, becoming more a memory than an active, present trauma.

The Aværyan Guard who’d been loping toward the one trapped Arkænyn with his pact longsword brandished let out a feral shriek as his quarry vanished before his eyes. Tearing his helmet off, the guard would reveal the face of yet another Arkænyn, witchmarks in all the right spots for the Prince Regent of the Luxium.

“MATER!” Crazed by fiery, consummate rage his voice cracked all the way through the irate Aurisian-accented screams. “I WILL KILL THE BITCH FOR THIS! I’LL FUCKING KILL HER!!!” He roared as tears streamed down his reddened face as he crumpled to the floor, and one of his courtiers doffed a mask to kneel beside him.

“Come, Your Starlit Highness…” It was Seværys Princeps, Heir to the martial House of Astræon, who helped the weeping Platinum Prince to his feet and urged him off the ballroom floor with an escort of Aværyan Guardsmen.

Cithæra, who’d attended as a veiled Sentinel rather than a costumed guest, stepped up to Arvælyn and Aurin, nodding to the latter as she raised her voice for all to hear.

“All guests are to evacuate the ballroom at once. Return to your homes. If you are required for questioning or assessment, the authorities will find you.” She glanced to Palæmon and wordlessly ordered one of her Sentinels to attend to his wound. At another gesture, a portal appeared beside her.

“Come.” She said to Aurin and Arvælyn, “Phocion is collecting Finn. We’ll rendezvous with him at the Palatium Umbrarum.”

[Aurin]

"In the flesh," he muttered, and Arry could certainly imagine the smirk under his mirror that matched his tone. His hands may or may not have fallen upon flesh that would have gotten another man's hands removed at the wrist; perhaps he would lose his too as the sands of time had sent his boy into the sands of Atraxia, changing everything.

But he couldn't enjoy the shock in Arry's voice for more than a moment. They were, of course, in the middle of an attempted coup, or at least multiple assassinations. Whoever the woman in white was, or whomever she worked for, had a sense of style, a panache, that he could appreciate, but they were at odds. At least, he wasn't going to let anyone harm a golden hair on his golden boy's head, nor bruise his perfect golden arse.

The jackal-headed Aurin was a bit awkward getting around the wings, but he managed to step around Arry as he pulled blades from under the gorget of his mask.

"Don't worry - daddy's here." But he needn't have bothered. In the chaos, one victim was evacuated through the fucking ceiling by who he assumed was Arry's Avialae brother. One assassin was stabbing someone else, which was of no moment to the jackal. And some silvery bed slave-looking person bellowed at the hooded woman and - persuaded her to leave? After the failures quit the scene, he straightened, and began flipping one of his razor-sharp daggers and catching it between deft, if scarred, fingers.

"Anticlimactic, as they say in the theatre," he noted, turning back toward Arry, though the onyx eyes and ebon snout of his mask was the last to turn, wanting to be sure the danger had passed. "Well, it was fun while it lasted, but they didn't really bring it with the catastrophic lack of security like a royal Kalzasern event. Oh... convenient." Had he been given a key through the wards, he would have taken Arry somewhere himself, but it seemed his waif had a Sentinel for that.

He indicated the portal with an elegant sweep of his arm, dagger pointing to their destination. "Shall we?"

[Finn]

What counted for mastery elsewhere was mere competence in Solunarium. Even as he made his righteous command of the white-robed figure, he felt her - it was Thalya herself - make some unknowably complex reaction and vivisect his mind to change it - change his memory, change his reality - with an attack expertly tailored for him and for him alone. As she enervated him as though he were a fly, his forward momentum gave way to gravity and he began to stumble and crawl.

Fortunately, Lystreia cared more for his safety than her tambours, dropping them as she caught him and bore his weight down to the ground. She was an elf, and stronger than she looked, but he had put on quite a deal of muscle over the past couple of years, and so the best she could do was mitigate the damage.

That was all she could do magically, as well. When she managed to take his face in her hands, calling his name, she looked into eyes gone golden as his halo only slowly began to fade. His commandment was being fulfilled, but he was slipping into madness. She was no mind-healer, but she knew a thing or two; she knew enough to know that the best she could do was throw him a lifeline until someone better equipped could unravel what Her Divine Radiance had done.

Had Her Radiance truly attempted to assassinate her own heir and the heir of the Umbrium? Lystreia didn't know - couldn't know - but found that she wanted to, and found that this heroic peregrinus might just be a person she ought to hitch her star to, his race be damned.

"Arry, no..." he whispered brokenly, unmanned. "Your flesh, all your skin, and all your bones carry all our generations with futures still unknown..." The sing-song lyrics might sound mad, but she could feel him struggling against the enchantment, as his doughty spirit and magical defenses had somewhat blunted the felling blow.

"Come back, Farstrider," she Commanded softly. "Follow my voice."

She was less aware of the goings-on, trusting to the Silver Sentinels and Golden Guard to reinstate order as the royal assassins fled. Vaguely aware of the order to disperse, she focused on Finn and was rewarded for her efforts. She brought him back from some Kalzasern alley where Zaichaeri thugs pinioned his arms behind him and slowly beat his amatus to death, and her symphony remained entwined with his when she looked up slowly from black boots to the starkly beautiful face of Finn's soon-to-be brother-in-law.

"Your Serene Highness," she said, her voice euphonious as any instrument, "he requires a mind-healer." She would have risen to bow, but thought he would not stand on formality while she was holding up his fellow Vigil.

Finn looked up to see Phocion, the gold now bled out of his eyes, his halo extinguished. Somehow, even the platinum paint couldn't hide how ragged he looked, eyes bloodshot, jaw slack. There was recognition, though. His scars had ripped open and it felt as though his soul was bleeding, but he was present and he knew his priorities.

"Where is he?"

He couldn't hear Arvælyn's song among those around him.

[Hilana Chenzira]

Hilana could do naught but watch the events before them quietly. At the guardsman’s enraged screams, it struck her. “That must be His Serene Starlit Highness, Prince Arkaenyn,” she looked on at the Deiori Princeling that was dressed as one of the Arvaeryn Guard. “He’s talking about Queen Thalya… The Solar Sovereign. But I thought that Raithen rescued him...?” She blinked glancing at Lia, who closed her eyes behind her mask however briefly, flabbergasted. Her elder sister shook her head, but was quite relieved overall that her little sister had not attempted to do something with her Shadows. Attracting that sort of attention was likely suicidal. Hilana was capable of learning, if nothing else: observing and trying to think ahead instead of just acting on instinct and impulse. In time, that could be trained. But experience was necessary.

When Cithaera raised her voice to deliver the instructions to the assembled crowd, that was that. “Let’s go,” Hilana glanced at her pack. The party was not only ruined, but clearly over. She could only hope that the others were okay. If that was Prince Arkaenyn there, then who had been with Raithen that got carried out by the handsome Avialae? She would likely find out later. She did wonder about the state of the stabbing victims, but there were better trained surgeons than she to handle such things. There was nothing she could do for any of them, and she’d surely just get in the way or make it worse. “We’ll get some more drinks and snacks at home.” She smiled up at the Rathari. “I’m sorry that this has been a bust. I was hoping you’d get to experience a full ball.” But it seemed that nothing ever went as planned, and that was par for the course. Even here, among such powerful figures.

“It is time to go,” one of the accompanying Sentinels agreed, and with them flanking, the Vastian sisters led their northern packmate out of the crush. Hilana’s Mask dissuaded others from crowding or pushing against them, and once they were clear, one of the masked Sentinels wove the portal back to the Vastiana's home for the three of them to step through. The Vigils would leave them to it, and go and make their reports. In the meantime, more drink might go down a treat…. Especially with some pastries and other goodies to soak it up. She'd wondered about going to one of the clubs or bars to see what was being said, but Princess Cithaera had said for them to return home. Disobedience would not be brooked.

[Aeros]

TIMESTAMP: -
NOTES: -

- - -

- - -

Palæros’ actions were reflexive– Palæmon, in this case, had been the one to act in their shared defense. The torrent of water didn’t connect with the intended target, rather, the simulacrum managed to evade him. For a brief moment, it felt as if time had slowed nigh to a stand still. He blinked, then his eyes widened in terror as realization set in, panic rising at how, despite the presumed safety of his surroundings, he was as vulnerable now as he'd been in the Void. Æros might not be doomed here if Palæmon died, but if he got his cousin killed that'd be more than enough to break his fragile spirit.

He stood frozen, dazed, with reality’s abrupt resumption hitting him like an avalanche– a vorpal blade in the back. Body bending on impact, he stayed as still as he could manage; Palæros bade to obey the simulacrum’s command. It sounded like Arkænyn, but it did not speak like him– the High Vastian accent was a further surprise.

The next several events played out before him in bright flashes, his mind struggling to keep up. People moved around him, some more panicked or ferocious than others, and many began to evacuate even before the order to do so was given. His assailant and its allies, even, faded out before his very eyes– the weapon it wielded coming with.

With the blade’s absence, he began to bleed– profusely. Wearing next to nothing, there was little by way of fabric to absorb it or pack the wound and Æros’ instinct came near to commanding him to cauterize it. He'd rather suffer the pain of burns than bleed out– not now, not here.

But, thankfully, he might not have to do that. He wasn't exactly sure who'd given the Sentinel the command, confused and increasingly light headed as he was, but he was grateful for their assistance and intended to yield to whatever commands they may give.

“Stop the bleeding, quickly…however you can manage,” his voice little more than a panicked rasp.

Where they would go, what would come next, he knew not– and in the back of his mind, he couldn't help but to wonder what this event meant for the future.

- - -

"Vallenor"

"Vastien"

"Valasren"

"Common"

[Pharaoh]

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Message from: Pharaoh

R E V I E W Finn XP: 25 (May be used for applicable magic) Raithen XP: 25 (May be used for applicable magic) Hilana XP: 20 (May be used for applicable magic) Lykos XP: 20 (May be used for applicable magic) Aurin XP: 20 (May be used for applicable magic) Talon XP: 10 (May be used for applicable magic) Mirza XP: 10 (May be used for Semblance) Æros XP: Not applicable Injuries/Ailments: Finn has taken psychic damage and Æros' host has been stabbed. Loot: The goody bags were sadly not distributed due to the chaos of the assassination attempt. Notes: Apologies for the extreme delay in reviewing this thread. Points were awarded as follows: 20xp for two or more posts 10xp for one post 5 bonus xp for extreme acts of heroism that put the PC at risk. Thanks to all who participated in this epic thread!