Anarion

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Set sighs, looking a little deflated, but pulls herself into a wry smile. Marianne and Canada are right, and Marianne is gone. Set looks at Canada instead. "It doesn't help us, really, Marianne is right. I just, I guess I'm an idealist of a different sort. I thought, I still think that some Annunaki wouldn't support their gods and their chain if they knew it was a lie. We don't need them to come out and found a new government with us as the leaders, we just need them to doubt, to stand aside for us. If a few even helped, all the better."

She lets out another sigh and extracts herself from her perch on the table, settling into the couch instead for a moment, her long linen skirt folding over itself as she relaxes. "Marianne is right though, it's too dangerous now. If they know what we came for, they'll be able to figure out our plans. We can release some other scandals to distract them, there's hundreds of ridiculous stories here about sisters stabbing each other for their inheritance in secret. I think I'm still going to work on the verse. We need this info and it is painful to read. The author obviously had delusions of grandeur. Maybe there will come a time when we should release it."

She settles back and actually looks at Canada. "So how about you, Canada? How was your night? You never even made it to the library, and I saw you ended up in the arena before a lynx smashed all the video screens. Everything going okay?"

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

She's still in her Set guise since there wasn't time to change and just in case someone bursts through the door before they're ready to leave, but Anathet is not putting on the act and instead is practically quivering with excitement! Her aura is flashing pastels if you could see it, going from one thing to the next as she thinks through different ideas. This is big, there's so much here. Oh, oh, goodness the writing here is so stilted, she was going to have to take this, polish it up, and publish it. Oh yes, yes, if this came out from the phantom thieves and started making its way through the markets, the Annunaki would find it of course. Perhaps even start questioning the truth of their gods! Oh, can you imagine, all those links in their chain suddenly seeded with a little doubt.

"This is big! Girls, this is so big. Ah! Where to start?! Okay, okay, so this story, it's like an epic, but kind of badly written retelling of the last time they tried to build a city here. There was a different djinn, this one's Caphtor, but last time it was Tiamat! Whoever was on earth back then, I can't really tell if this was, like, early humans or something, maybe it's our historical Babylon? Anyway, whoever it was they messed it up, Tiamat broke free. She was gonna, like meteor their city into the planet but they've got something called the Iblis Protocol that killed the freed djinn. So, like two important things. We need to convince Caphtor to not blow up the planet when we free her, and we need this Iblis Protocol thing so they don't kill Caphtor!"

Anathet holds up a hand and starts flipping to the other section, not even looking at what Marianne is doing or saying hi to Canada. "Wait there's more though. This story says that after all that, Tiamat's vessel shattered into ten thousand pieces and when she was gone there were, like, monsters called the 'children of Tiamat' led by GLGMSH, and they killed Ishtar! But there's another Ishtar now, so that's gotta mean that whatever's going on with the Annunaki gods, they're not really deities, or like not immortal ones. They can be killed and replaced! I think that means we need to expose them! If we take down one of their leaders and they can cover it up, they won't tell anybody and just get a new one.

Gods, this is huge. This is mind-blowing! We beat them before. Maybe the children of Tiamat are still around, or even GLGMSH?!

I think I should finish the manuscript, I can do it during my days! Then we can publish it secretly, like by the Phantom Thieves. Send it around to all the people and let the Annunaki find it. They'll freak out! And it might let the children of Tiamat and GLGMSH know that we're looking for them!"

From her voice, you might get the impression that taking down an empire with a well-written story is Anathet's perfect fantasy.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

On our first mission, we encountered a, hmm, what would the word translate to, a Projector perhaps? Not like the tool, but one who projects. The primary creature is actually quite large, perhaps twice the height of a human, nearly ten feet tall with long arms, a tan fur across the whole body, and an elongated snout-like face with small sharp teeth. They have the power to create illusions, mental landscapes of various sorts. They're not particularly complex, the creatures primarily use them as a hunting tool, overlaying details on the landscape that camouflage them or make them entirely invisible while the victim may not even realize that they're seeing an illusion (unlike the more complex fair that one gets from, say, Asterion). They normally hunt on the other side of the galaxy and exist in a sort of half-physical, half-etherial state, their primary prey being various kinds of pyschic parasites they can devour.

The ab-Enkiji had some kind of small device that was attuned to the realms of one of these creatures and they activated it when we broke into their lab. The Projector was enraged at first. It projected an illusion as it entered of itself suddenly disappearing to hide its attacks and we had to fend it off. It eventually calmed itself after smashing most of a lab and hurling away several guards that we directed it towards. When it did, we were able to communicate with it in basic terms and it let us activate the Enkiji device again so that it could escape.

Althoug the Enkiji had activated it themselves, it was much easier for them to explain to their superiors that the Phantom Thieves had summoned some sort of monster that had wrecked their lab and that they had no responsibility for the damage whatsoever, which only added to our reputation.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

[Potential 2. Hopeless. Insecure.]

"Time does fly." Set sighs and puts aside the remaining tablets that she's reading, slipping it into a little rift of her own make, her bracelet lapis glowing ever so slightly. Then she shakes her head, letting the snake upon her crown lean into Jerrioth Ab-Istari. Her gaze is shadowed and in the dim light of the library, perhaps her face does not look entirely human, tattooed as it is with the animals of Set. Perhaps Jerry thinks that a crocodile will come alive to eat her?

She's ready for this now, at least. She's still not feeling good, but she's had time to calm herself properly, to steady her heart and lean into her role. This will be much better than her act at the gate. She stands close, but leaves Marianne to her work. Set's role is to pass judgment, to tear down the last gates in her mind. She speaks firmly, but quietly, her gaze intense and unblinking as that snake seems to stare hypnotically with her.

"Your people think to build walls to keep out beasts and shelter from the storms. But your walls are filled with rot. Do you see, Jerioth ab-Istar? Do you see the rot within your shining walls and your vaunted great chain? The rot of brutality. The rot of sloth. And yours, the rot of willful blindness. We know of your doings. Did you think that because you could surround yourself with beauty that you could ignore the suffering of others? Did you think we would miss your role as midwife and breeder of slaves?"

Set gathers herself up and her aura is black. Dark enough that as she projects herself to Jerry's mind, the lights may even seem to darken. A little bit of theatrics to supplement Marianne as her judgment reaches the crescendo.

"Yours was the hand that sought to rob the slaves of their humanity. To make them weak and docile. To rob them of their thoughts and their dreams. That you did not hold the rod nor draw blood yourself does not lessen your crime. This is why you will be sent back. Your sentence now to be unable to be blind. You will right your wrongs, you will teach your servants to act with respect and your slaves to dream again. You will not let your brothers and sisters take your position nor undo your good works. Only that will purge your share of the rot and purify your great chain. And if you fail, then your rotten walls will be shattered and the great storm will purge your homes and cleanse your people for you. So declares Set, goddess of the reclaiming desert."

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Sympathy? Of course sympathy. Set thinks that what the Annunaki do is monstrous, but when she can see the emotions of the people around her so clearly, how can she not have sympathy? Even the Seneschal has his worries, his desires to do right by his people, to ensure that the city runs well and all are prosperous. His mind is not animated by a desire to do evil, but rather by the evil that is all around him and formed him. The evil of his blindness that he cannot see the suffering of the djinn or the people he enslaves for the wealth of the Annunaki. Each Annunaki is bound already in countless chains long before Marianne reaches them. Chains of family, duty, and expectation. It does not forgive their invasion nor their cruelty, but still Set feels sympathy for them as she fights them. That is her nature, too kind by half.

Even her choice of deity is a choice of sympathy. Set is the god(dess) of war, storms, and chaos. The goddess of the outsider and the red desert beyond the safety of civilization. She styles herself a force of freedom. A breaking of the society that confines the Annunaki so rigidly that even in the library right in front of her face she watches as they fail to think and grow. Anathet imagined, when she chose her persona, that hers would be the storm that struck with a vast and powerful force but departed with a sweet and tender kiss, the water that renewed civilization once the confining walls were shattered.

So! So to think now of an Annunaki who has become anathema to them. Who is trapped and lost. Ah, it's so sad and so hard. The hatred she felt towards Marduk, that was understandable. But what would she do if freed? All that power. Would she work for change or merely destroy? The Zhianku have a phrase for that: the self-consuming whirlwind. A gale of such force and power that it falls in upon itself and blows itself out and after there is nothing but silence.

Set is grabbing the tablets, as many as she can carry. These files on the eyeless girl and the heresy (how cool, an Annunaki schism! Though she wasn't in any rush to convince people they wanted to destroy Earth). Grabbing the tech files too, she thought perhaps it would help her improve her own stuff or at least keep them unique and mysterious longer. The Enkiji didn't need to be studying her. Gross.

Step, step, warp, step from pedestal to pedestal. She's got an idea for the eyeless girl. She needs something, some maps, plans, routes of the secret ways in these Annunaki halls so she has something to shorthand directions. A way to picture the temples in her mind's eye. A way to let the eyeless girl show her places to go, to guide first and then to find her and free her. When they were ready.

Oh, and there is this other thing. TIAMAT. Marianne had tossed that her way, so she needed to grab those. They were supposed to be worth this whole mission, so they'd better be important too. What was going on with that?

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

[Potential 2. Hopeless. Insecure.]

Set lets Marianne take the lead entering the library, pulling Jerry through. She waits until they're looking the other way before she gives Caphtor a slight nod of thanks and enters herself.

She had messed up, hadn't she? Not like, the worst or anything, but ugh, she was so off her game, not feeling at all sure of herself. She had just done her thing, treated Caphtor the way that felt right to her and not stopped to think at all! Ugh ugh ugh! Now the big Annunaki noble had seen her do that. Maybe they'd hurt Caphtor or change her rules or something? Plus Marianne was obviously trying to do the whole big fear thing. Set hadn't even been paying attention to Marianne's expected emotions when she'd asked her to be the inquisitor. She was probably supposed to make a big magic show of it, get all glowy and make it look like she had some special way to control the Djinn that the Annunaki couldn't stop, then just share her mind with Caphtor and ask nicely that way. Now she'd screwed it up and kind of broken the mystique. God what an idiot. What a big softie. Marianne was going to chew her out for this later. "Set, we are but three, we must rely on our notoriété if we are to accomplish anything!" and so forth.

Okay, well she could still make at least something of a show of it. Behind the two, she steps into the library proper and brings down her sandal with a loud *clack* and causing her dress to flare up in a swirl of reds, blues, and greens. "In the name of the great goddess Set, lord of the desert and the storms, god of the outsider and the beast, I consecrate this space!" She brings her other foot down, setting them apart and rotating slightly into a strong stance, as though defining the bounds of a magic circle. "By her power, I claim this knowledge that it may be freed. The beasts will roam the halls and tear down the walls! The winds will shatter the windows and the sands will breach the gates!" Her jewelry glows in a sudden, bright flash (never mind that it's all just theatrics and low power laser effects) and then she is quiet and still with her arms crossed as she lets herself settle into place.

So, alright there Marianne, some theatrics. She's not at all confident in it, but she's projecting strength as best she can. Over to you to finish things up.

When Marianne is done with her prisoner, Set is actually eager to dig into the stacks. There is the question of TIAMAT to research (and then to rip as many tablets out of the archives as possible as fast as possible to cover their tracks). And, there is the matter of the eyeless girl. She's going to search for captive heroes and for descriptions of spirits and gods with dark holes for eyes and see what that turns up. She's very excited, but she's doing her best not to act giddy because that would be unbecoming of a Phantom Thief in front of a prisoner.

Also, Canada had better be making her own way out. There wasn't going to be time to wait for her at this rate.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

Rinley and Mila

Well, this is a right mess. Rinley, your question is still hanging there in the air. It's up to Mila how she wants to answer it. Or if. Or if she wants to push you away even.

For what it's worth, Sessily and Seizhi both heard shouting. They're standing behind you now outside the storage room. Each of them has two plates containing Seizhi's finished vegetarian powdered egg omelettes with canned tomatoes, spinach, and a little chedder cheese. They smell delicious, and the smell makes its way even into the storeroom along with Rinley's plaintive request for a truth or a dare.

Sessily, for her part, just looks kind of sad. She's holding the plates (obviously one for her that's already got a bit out of it that she couldn't quite resist) but her eyes are downcast. Like she intruded on something she shouldn't have. And, well, if you want to read her any more than that, Rinley, you'll need to spend some Will or miraculous powers on it. You're pretty distracted after all. Stop listening to me and pay attention to Mila, sheesh!

*****

Dulcinea and Jasper

I have nothing actually. This is a nice quiet little scene. The ramen is delicious. The waitress (who is definitely the granddaughter of the owner, they have the exact same bone structure around their eyes, it's uncanny) is attentive whenever you need more tea, but not intrusive. Your soup broth has plenty of salt and the noodles are tender but not soggy. Please enjoy your date exchange of scientific perspectives.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Set takes a deep breath. This she knew how to do, and she felt more confident falling into her role in the plan. No time to blush with shame or seethe with anger at herself when she had a job to do. And if Caphtor was more present, all the better. "That would be me" Set says, stepping forward. She puts a hand out and takes Caphtor's in her own. Let Jerioth see her share of heresy today. Treating a Djinn as a being worthy of empathy instead of as a tool to be treated as a lesser by all other beings. She raises Caphtor's hand to her own heart.

"If it's all right with you, I need to perform the duties of an inquisitor of Ereshkigal today, Caphtor." She lets a bit of herself bleed over to the Djinn: a confident blue when it comes to the skills necessary (for she can surely read people and seek information as well as any Ereshkigali) and then a little bit of contrasting brash orange, the sort of emotion that says I'm ready for anything without even bothering with the question of what substance backs that up.

Caphtor may never have been asked this before, but then again, in all of Capthor's history with the Annunaki, it's doubtful that anyone ever presented themselves to her as an inquisitor of Ereshkigal when it wasn't true. Just think of the scandal! Their whole house would be brought in for reeducation for keeping such a fool among them. Great dynasties of Annunaki have been brought down for lesser crimes than that!

So Set has every confidence that she can simply ask, sincerely, for what she needs from Caphtor.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

[Potential 2
Hopeless. Insecure.]

Mistake! Pain! Fire! Flood!

In another world, another time, Set could just curl into a ball and cry. She could try to sift through every image, pick them apart piece by piece like a tangled knot, forget all the world around her, forget to eat or drink and just work at the thread until the world started making sense again.

It's shame that brings Set back to the present. The knowledge that Marianne is present and that she needs to be a good team member. The knowledge that a significant Annunaki prisoner is here and that anything more than a momentary reaction to some unusual thing will break the spell of power that the Phantom Thieves have woven for themselves. She stands, despite everything. She can't settle her mind back into blue, but she settles for a churning white/blue like wind on the waves rocking back and forth. She can go with the motion, ride it forward. She breathes more evenly. Strength lives in the breath.

But also, you know what, today has been a shit day for first impressions. And for a moment, as she stands up, she turns her face up and away from the prisoner so only Marianne can see her. Only Marianne can see the tears she's fighting back, the pain in those eyes, the way her face is all twisted up and she's biting down so hard she's nearly grinding her teeth. She was so close, she had felt something that hadn't been near her in months and she'd blown it! Right in front of Marianne and a very important prisoner to boot. Shame burns on her face and she can't hide it.

[Sharing her weakness with Marianne. Marking Insecure, marking potential, and Marianne gets influence over Set.]

She brushes a hand across her face, clearing her eyes. "Well, who do we have here?" She asks weakly, recovering enough to get back into her act. She is still painted with the images of the Set animals, still wearing her serpent's crown, still without a veil and adorned in her rainbows. She draws that into herself, rides the waves. "This is an Annunaki noble? I'm supposed to, what, wait until she's done groveling to get the door open?"

That's something at least. Gods what a day.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

Dulcinea and Jasper!

Shokyou looks like she just stepped into Wonderland. There's this big goofy grin on her face when you take her hand, Jasper, and when you promise to sing to her, she's just in heaven. Her eyes light up and sparkle as her grin goes from ear to ear. "Okay, okay, you definitely need to recover then. That's very important." She gives you the most solemn nod she can manage, her hair only bouncing a little bit and absolutely no giggles whatsoever (please ignore the lip twitch).

The two of you start heading to the ramen place Dulcinea suggested. As you round a corner and Shokyou gets the paper airplane with its offer of comics chatter though, you can audibly hear an extended high-pitched squeeing in the distance.

[Jasper go ahead and take an XP for doing sunny things. Dulcy, you're capped out on XP this scene already (barring a mention of the Archives) but I think enough time has passed that you can get another emotion XP. Also flagging to you that this is getting you an In Over Your Head issue when I do the weekly wrap up]

Oh, don't think we're done though. The ramen place is a classic Fortitude restaurant. The entrance is marked by some bright red wool curtains with the characters for ramen written across them. When you pull them aside, you find a nice warm room full of low pine-wood tables and chairs. Each table has its own little nook to it separated by various painted screens so that you can only see out the direction where you enter from. The air smells of noodles, soy, and a little garlic in a delight to the senses. You can hear people chatting, laughing, and slurping their noodles, but it's not so loud that you can't hear yourselves talk. Everything about the place is warm and homey, full of good memories and gentle care.

Once you enter fully, the hostess, an elderly woman named Ms. Mino, offers you a warm smile and a "table for two dears?"

*****

Mila and Rinley

The figure in the mirror is wearing a mask, so you really have no idea who it is, but she definitely isn't either of your reflections (I mean, probably, maybe one of your reflections put a mask on when you weren't looking).

This is, how would I put it, a little early for this sort of thing to be happening, but you invoked this and invoking names has a certain power all its own. Plus, you did it on the day of an outside storm that seems to have it in for you personally, Mila!

So if you're paying attention, it's not a surprise that the reflection starts talking, but it's not any fun either. "Wow, a maid cafe? I mean, really? Like, don't get me wrong, the costumes are cute, but I bet you've only got the one, right? First time you trip and spill some ketchup on it, you're done, never mind coming up with the cash necessary to dress the cook and your new waitress. Plus, you know they're going to end up wrecking the place, you've got zero practice as a manager and they're both obvious trouble, there's no way you're going to keep them in line. Fortitude isn't into these kinds of gimmicks either, everybody here just wants to eat at the same place they always eat and have the same food they always have. Nothing but fish and noodles. No way you're going to get more than the scattered customer. Like, seriously, you should just forget this and call it quits. Trust me, I'm only trying to save you pain here, this just isn't something you're good at. So, how about you pack it in for the day and head back to the archives for a nice long nap? It will save everyone time."

The sounds of Seizhi cooking outside and some laughter from the straw-haired girl come back into focus. You hadn't noticed they'd faded, but now that they're present, you can both breathe a little more easily at least.

[Mila take a point of the sickness issue. You would get it at the end of the week wrap-up, but I think it's worth giving it to you now. Note that it comes with a free MP.]

Rinley, you probably didn't actually hear all of that word for word. It was directed at Mila. But, well, you're you and if I know anything about Rinley Yatskaya (besides the fact that she has a bushy tail, which is a thing I know) it's that she's way better than the average dreamer and she can see into people's hearts and know that she's looking at a labor of love when she sees this place. So you know that somebody showed up in that mirror and did dreamlike things and that something's happening here that could make Mila's heart waiver. This is concerning. You should be concerned. It is also a mystery! You should mystery at it!

[Mila, I'm tossing you both an under siege and emotion XP here because I feel bad for writing this already.
Rinley, you get an emotion XP for getting this ball rolling. Also depending on how this goes, this could be a 3 XP flag for your adventure quest if trouble really starts here. Maybe, maybe not.]