event five - july 17 - july 31
before.
A larger-than-usual crowd of Councilors gathered in the second floor dining room around lunch time on July 17th. Maybe it was something about the weather, or the way their last official meeting had ended, or - well, who can say for sure? Something brought each of them to the room that day to eat, with a few conspicuous absences. Rarely did so many of them dine together, and the oddity of it was felt in the way each stuck closest to someone whose attention they didn’t much mind. The Sun, The Moon, and The Star lit up one side of the room, drawing others into their mischief. The Chariot and The Lovers made idle conversation with Temperance. Pretending to ignore the rest of them, The Tower found himself badgered out of his brooding by The Fool. For a few hopeful moments, the atmosphere at The Lair was light.
The Hermit shuffled her cards at one corner of the table, content to keep to herself while she ate, at first. A shadow briefly crossed the room, bringing with it a chill, and though it was gone as quickly as it had come she was unsettled. She stood as if to go to Death or Strength or another friendly face who wouldn’t mind the intrusion. Instead her body went rigid. Cards flipped and tumbled to the floor around her. Her eyes had glazed over in their usual way. How her lips quivered and her forehead wrinkled were… less than usual. Her voice cut clear through the room.
“Stop.”
She had begun muttering then, a jumble of half-spoken words and hisses that did not sound like any human tongue, until a ragged sob broke from her lips. She raised shaking hands to claw at her scalp. The glassy-eyed stare of a prophet in the throes of a vision had gone wide with abject fear at some horror no one else in the room could see. This was not a vision like those she’d had before. Those were quiet and still. Not like this. Few had witnessed those moments, but the difference was felt in the room nonetheless. Most strange, and perhaps most shocking, of all was the way her fevered words had risen to a wail. “None of us are safe,” she said, shaking her head back and forth wildly. “We have sown our own destruction. None of us are safe from each other.” Anyone who stepped forward to her made her flinch away, her unseeing gaze huge with fright. “No one can be trusted. Salus iacet in, in, in exitium. Stop. Stop! St-”
Like a bulb burning out, she dropped, her head bouncing off the corner of the dining table as she fell. At exactly the same moment, though this was not known to most of the Council at the time, chaos reigned in the rest of the house. A fire winked into existence in a corner of the Training Room. Caught by Judgement, it didn’t spread far, but soot marked near the ceiling nonetheless, and no obvious source was found. Every piece of glassware in the Rec Room shattered at precisely the same moment, showering its old wooden floor - and, incidentally, The Emperor and The Empress - with shards and liquors. Water, gray and muddied, seeped into the Library’s floor as if welling from the ground itself. It reached no more than a few inches high, but enough to reach a few misplaced books and stir up a reaction from The High Priestess. None of these events have red-handed culprits, and yet… These days it takes so little provocation for the Council to point fingers. Almost as little as it takes to distract them from the gradual mutilation of the ley line right beneath their feet.
Quickly The Hermit was moved and not long after the rest of the dining room cleared, the chill in the air now apparent to everyone who had lingered. In the shadows lurked two figures hidden from onlookers, one with dirt crushed into her threadbare sweater looking up at the other. Said other, with leathery skin pulled taut around its skull, stared into the now-empty room through pure white, too-round eyes rimmed in sooty gray. It nodded, perhaps satisfied by what it had witnessed, and the reflection at its side slid away into the gloom.
now.
Word of the vision and various small disasters spread fast, as it tends to do, particularly when the news is so damning - can anyone in the house be trusted? Who might start a fire for no apparent reason? Who would destroy books or windows, and why?
What is apparently foretold by the vision is alarming, but the other problems don’t appear as otherworldly as they could. In fact, it feels as if someone (a Councilor, perhaps?) is working to sow unease. Provoked to action, The Emperor sets her sights on Nashville, intent to determine The Devil’s motivations. Can she be relied upon, or will she rise to dark expectations? Convince her to return, to stay, or simply keep out of the way - The Emperor isn’t sure yet which she prefers.
In much the same fashion, distrust spurs The Chariot to storm out of her room and into the world, and unfortunately for him, The Fool gets caught in her crosshairs. Just a few doors down from them, Temperance and The Star reason their way through the moments events, wondering if they aren’t all, somehow, related.
The Hermit is not unconscious for long, though that does not deter Death from taking her to the infirmary, where he and The Hierophant brace for disorientation and panic. The Magician slides away with Justice to discuss the implications of what was said, while The Hanged Man and The Wheel of Fortune take it upon themselves to lighten the mood all around with pranks and general mischief.
The crisis in the Library is enough to draw The Tower to The High Priestess, and though he is well outside his wheelhouse, he tries his best to help. Judgement takes news of the fire to The Sun, as well as his suspicions of the flare’s mysterious origin.
The Lovers joins The Empress in the Rec Room, not because she particularly wants to clean, but because The Empress is one of few people she isn’t so jittery around these days. Or maybe it’s lingering guilt that drives her. Either way.
The air, the water, the earth… Something is different at The Lair, something that The Moon thinks she may be imagining until Strength shares her own feelings on the matter. Ley lines may be out of Strength’s depth, but two heads are usually better than one, so long as the other doesn’t look remarkably like yours.
Happy event day, Councilors! Can you feel those shadows lurking closer? Maybe soon you’ll discover what awaits in them! First we have to set everyone at each other’s throats, though, because it’s just so much fun. As always, your assigned prompts are listed above, but you are more than encouraged to continue old threads and plot others besides! If your character is not listed in any specific location during the vision, you can decide whether or not they were there to witness! This event will run between July 17th and July 31st. If you have any questions, we will do our best to take care of them for you. And as always and most importantly, have fun!
