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MISSION [ the sleeper ] + plotting post
A strange sickness has been passing over the country of Kilnan — slowly, its inhabitants have started falling victim to sleep that no one can wake them from. None are dead; they still breathe, but whatever tricks the people have tried, loud noises, smells, shaking them... nothing has worked. The people remain asleep, and more are unable to wake each day.
To make things worse, no one has been able to reach the country’s wizard. The royal wizard, Remi d’Arbes, is called upon whenever anything magical happens on a larger scale, and though the royals in Kilnan have tried contacting him about this, there has been no response. His castle, suspended over the countryside, still stands — but all those who have entered to call upon him have not returned.
As such, the country is on the verge of ruin: if nothing is done, if the wizard is not alerted, the entire country may soon be under the spell of sleep.
The team’s objective is to find the orb. Viveca has traced it to the wizard’s castle, but its specific location there, as well as whether anyone is using it currently, is unknown.
To defend the team against the sleeping sickness, Viveca arms the team with one vial of anti-sleep essence per team member — if used, it can wake up someone from this strange sleep state, but it only works once.
The team will be sent straight to the castle, and will not have access to the country of Kilnan itself.
The castle, commonly known as the Crystalline Palace, is a large, white castle that blends together with the skies on top of the quiet countryside of Kilnan. Inside, it is full of sweeping staircases, tall, floor-to-ceiling windows adorned with stained class, and flowing curtains. There are a myriad of rooms, and long hallways that lead to them, lined with paintings. Many towers rise above the clouds.
But there is something strange about the castle — people say it never quite looks the same, and those who have been in it before say the interior is never the same, either… almost as if the castle and its rooms are not quite normal.
THE WIZARD
The royal wizard, Remi d’Arbes, has been in the country’s service for several generations. An extremely powerful magician, Remi deals with the most dire threats against the country. People describe him as a bit of a recluse — though very kind to children, Remi has a brusque and blunt manner that, along with his great magical power, leaves many citizens slightly afraid of him. In his dealings with the royals of the country, Remi has demonstrated his stance as a pacifist, unwilling to engage with battles or war unless absolutely necessary.
The mission spans the month of November, and characters will return to the station by the start of December. There will be one log for this mission.
The team’s main objective is to find the orb and retrieve it. To do that, they have to find out where exactly it is in the castle, whether it is being used, and if it is, somehow get the current owner to hand it over to them.
The log takes place on two “levels”: the actual castle, and the dreamscape. Characters who fall victim to the sleeping spell enter a dreamscape that shapes itself according to the characters’ memories, and characters may either be stuck in their own dreamscape or leave it to traverse through others’ dreamscapes.
The focus of this mission is on exploration and cooperation, as characters have to find the orb inside the castle, and work together to survive the dreamscapes.
The dreamscapes can vary: some of them take shape based on a character's subconscious, while some may be their memories that they are either stuck witnessing, or reliving without realising it is a memory. Characters may also appear in these dreamscapes as themselves from any point in their lives, so if they are reliving a memory from their childhood, for that dreamscape they would appear as a child. As soon as the dreamscape shifts, or they leave it to cross over to someone else's dreamscape, they would return to their regular age.
Essentially, for the dreamscape, you have three options: a "normal" memory share where the character is an outsider looking in, a memory that the character is reliving and experiencing without realising it is a memory, and traversing through other characters' dreamscapes. A character in a dreamscape can be woken up from the outside by another character in possession of an antidote.
If you want to sign your character up for a thread with the Wizard, please respond HERE by November 6, 6PM GMT. There is only one slot for this. Note that you are expected to be able to tag the thread consistently throughout the start of November.
Characters are encouraged to share information through the network, and a mod-provided voting post will be posted later on in the mission where characters can decide how exactly to get the orb.
The personal goals have been assigned, and can be found here. If you have any questions about your task, please ask us here! In the same comment, there are instructions for what to do if you are unhappy with the task your character has received.
Please use this post to plot for the mission and make your own plotting comments. You can use the form below:
no subject
"What? I can't hear you la-la-la"
ALMOST! It's almost as if he's been waiting forever for someone to tell him he's not alone and then it happens, and someone was a lying liar who lied! It's almost as if he'd do anything to keep that person! Wow, this got deep
Oh, I' sure they're going to see it differently, where Aleksander thinks she'll see his weakness for human contact a mile wide, his desperate need to belong so great that he put himself and others in danger because of it. That she will see him, Aleksander, and not the powerful man he made himself become.
Alina sees a kid standing up for a friend and get betrayed for it in the most horrible way. Also, Baghra in her prime, all beautiful and ruthless
This also means that I finally got around to reading the demon in the woods! Yay, but now I want to know more about little Aleks.
no subject
lesson 101: enslaving your girlfriend will make her run away from you and then you'll be alone and stuck listening to your mean mom nag at you and hit you with her cane for another 500 years. baghra's presence is a punishment all on its own tbh
she's just 100 lbs of yeet and emotions in a tiny body JDBHEFS kirigan worrying that she'll figure out his weakness while she's a naive dumbass is great, but - i think the way their views of it are going to differ also says a lot about their outlooks in general, with kirigan growing old and cynical and jaded and alina having a softer, more innocent and optimistic (to the point of frequently being naive) heart, and i love that a lot. tl;dr the way in which they're similar sometimes but also very opposite at other times like this is just very fascinating to me!
also the irony of it all is that she's more fond of baby aleks more than she is of big powerful man aleks OOPS. and a bonus: alina looking at baghra like oh my god she was young once? 😱
SAME i wish leigh would have done more short stories with the morozova bloodline! there's a lot of history to cover there. it would have been really cool to see more of the lives aleksander and baghra lived over the centuries BUT ALAS.
no subject
Yeah, he's pretty desperate. He tries to not show it, but- dude, when he's hurt and Alina visits him through the tether and he just cracks. 'It doesn't mean anything, it's not real' Ahahaha, uh huh, sure.
Well, Aleks is pretty sure that the only reason why Alina is being stupid and stubborn about this, is because his sacrifices have kept her sheltered. That she just doesn't understand the cruelty of the world yet. Of course, Alina understands a lot more than he gives her credit for, and he just-- overlooks that? That her Shu heritage has been used against her for so long and he honestly doesn't even notice? Because her heritage and her brown eyes are less important than her Small Science. She's beautiful and amazing and all these wonderful things, in his eyes. That she might not feel the same way, just doesn't really occur to him.
9.0 Demon in the woods. I just couldn't stop so you get everything!
I want to learn about Baghra's life so bad! Did she make more babies, and just toss them? How old is she really? Give us more!
no subject
ahahaha yeah, that makes sense, especially for someone who is old as balls who doesn't have the same preconceptions! and like you said, i think - because she's grisha, and the sun summoner no less - that it's easy for him to focus on that and just completely overlook that her life has been shitty. she's only just learning what it is to be discriminated against for being grisha, but she's been persecuted and hated and feared her entire life just for looking different. then add it onto the fact she was raised in an orphanage with asshole kids, and then the first army where just looking the way she does draws suspicion and having to witness the coldness of a king who doesn't care if you live or you die so long as he can keep fighting his war, and the fold being the reason her parents are gone... not a good upbringing. and that's part of why she's so drawn to outsiders and people who feel they don't belong (genya, especially) and people who know what it's like to be half of something else (nikolai, mal, rhys). i could write essays about this if i could BUT I'LL SHUT UP NOW wow that was a huge rambly paragraph from me.
it's lovely! i'll slam into it soon. c: hopefully my brain works enough this early to produce something not-bad.
same! i really loved the short story about aleksander's sister, too, but i love mermaids and sirens in general LMAO not gonna lie. god, i bet baghra is CRUSTY in terms of how old she is. some stories from her life from her POV would just be fantastic