Thanqol

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

For just a minute, just one minute... everyone gets off their bullshit.

Comstar shuts the fuck up. Rambangel lowers his gun to wipe away a tear. JuneBird stops mid-way through crawling across the floor in search of something that can cut through silk wrist bindings to just watch and tear up. @Tigerphim lets out an appreciative purr. Bode, invisible in the rafters, lowers his multisniper rifle so he's watching through his own eyes rather than a scope. Prometheus stops thinking about being the biggest robot. Cinders puts down the pipe organ she'd been getting ready to throw. There are no interruptions. There are no loud noises. For a moment everyone is just happy for you.

All of the chaos of your lives is on pause for a moment, in that way that normally only happens when you're alone together - but this time, it's so pure, so powerful, that it doesn't matter that you're not alone. Everybody can see it, and everyone can feel it so intensely that, just for a moment, you've bought the whole world into the serenity that exists between the two of you.

Fellowship: The Heart

It's perhaps unexpected that Ailee doesn't immediately open up with her full arsenal of terrifying, forbidden spellpower - but the keen eared observer would notice instead the brief little pleasured flick of her ears at the word 'tall'. It puts her in a good mood, and so the verbs stay in the dictionary.

"I see," she said, all sweetness. "So your cunning frog brain has identified me as some sort of spy, then? Someone who has come here with subtlety in mind? I look to you -" she rolls her bare white shoulders, feeling a crackle of energy go through her fur markings, "- like someone in disguise, desperately hoping that your sharp eyes wouldn't detect my -" she waggles her ears, bold and large and uncovered, "- true nature? Well, I am shocked and impressed! You'd better go! Get the town's mage! You'll surely need the most potent sorcerer of this little burg to figure out what to do with a cunning trickster like me, won't you?"

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

“Do you have any idea how little I need this right now? Put those guns down, you little—“

She stops, smooths down her hair, takes a deep breath. Count to five. Think about Euna’s smile.

“Hey, sorry,” she starts again. “I get the gesture, I didn’t mean to lose my cool. Thanks for showing up, Dommy, I was worried when you didn’t RSVP. It’s a little late for this, though; you really should have done the whole fake kidnapping shtick at my bachelorette’s.”

@Tatterdemalion

"This is deadly serious," said some rambo-looking motherfucker who was being vary careful not to flex his way out of the flowing white angel dress that you had on standby just in case a very particular form of inspiration struck at the last minute. Little adorable wings and everything. "You're going to marry Dominus - and as soon as the paperwork is signed we're going to drain your bank account and use your financial empire to fund the restoration of the old world order. Now get out there!"

You're shoved at gunpoint out onto the stage - and into the arms of a surprised looking Comstar. "Who the hell are you people?" she says as the soldiers storm out onto the stage.

But there is murder in her eyes and stretched across her mouth, and only maybe a twelfth of that is directed at her fiancée. If looks could kill (and in some universes, they can!), Euna's glare would be deadlier than the death gun pointed at her right now. Actually, all things considered, it probably still is. It's just, if the mean look doesn't work? She's pretty helpless right now. She needs a plan. Or time. Or help.

"I'm gonna give you... ten seconds to tell me what the fuck you think it is you're doing here. And then because this is such a special day, I'll give you an extra five to leave without doing it. You can tell Comstar she god damn well knows why she didn't get an invitation."

@Phoe

"This is a heist," said DeathGun69. "We are heisting your wedding. You and @Sarahphim are both going to marry Comstar instead of each other. Wah ha ha!"

"Such a brilliant plan!" swooned SSJ2Rick.

"She's so smart!" said BloodHackerXxX

This has the feel of one of those plans with a lot of question marks between here and profit, but such is on brand for Comstar plans.

There's not any time to think about it further, because the music to announce your arrival has started to play. Your unconventional bridesmaids gesture you out into the aisle, glowing and radiant in the midst of falling lily petals, towards a stage where the most beautiful @Sarahphim you've ever seen is waiting for you. Also Comstar, a couple of glowing pink robots, and like fifty armed soldiers are pointing guns at each other and the audience but... in this moment, does it matter?

Beg pardon, he knew exactly what he was getting into. His sister's associates include a genie, a pirate, a mutant, and an honest-to-goodness looney toon, and that's only some of the human-shaped ones. He'd crunched the numbers when the invitations went out, and there was a 100% chance of sitting next to weirdness. Not least, because he's Sara's family, and they've given each other shit since birth, so why not at her wedding?

That's why he and Locker have been improving his flexibility.

So as the Queen and the Tiger get busy--and dear sweet merciful heaven he could have gone his entire life without learning how an amazon and a tiger kiss--his rear scoots forwards on the chair until he's able to feed himself horizontally through the gap between seat and the backrest.

And with that, he's off to find and edit the seating chart, because obviously that's what he's supposed to do.

@Balmas

So. Problem. The seating chart has already been hacked. All of the rows are to be filled with THE GLORIOUS CREATIONS OF DOCTOR SYLVANIUS, who has sent notice that they are arriving slightly late. With a grim sensation you look up at the sky where a dozen interplanetary transport missiles are closing in from high orbit surrounded by blazes of fire. They'll be here in minutes.

"Hey Brainstorm," said Prometheus over the comms. "Can I pleaaaaaaaaase hijack some of those incoming combat robots? I promise I'll use their powers for good. Pleaaaaaaaaase?"

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

Fortitude doesn't have a good context for dealing with explosions. The last one was a couple of winters ago in an event that has been slanderously hypothesized to have something to do with Rinley and all of those missing fireworks. This results in a population profoundly unprepared to handle a detonation of enormous size and ferocity coming from the old lighthouse. Some people raise their heads and hands to look off into the distance. Plenty of birds make the decision to get into the air and circle around, squawking urgently. A couple of dogs howl and bark because they were just looking for an excuse. A cat falls off a windowsill and pretends he meant to do that.

But there are no followups. No kaiju monsters or sustained firework aftershocks or invading star-eyed Riders from beyond, so everyone mostly just goes back to their own business afterwards and assumes that it'll sort itself out. Fortitude is that kind of place.

There is now a crater besides the lighthouse, and a white-hot shattered hole of molten stone that cuts right through the structure. The ground is burning, the sand is fusing to glass, the rocks have shattered, gouts of steam erupt from the lake where little fragments of molten fire have landed. For all the energy of the scene, though, the excitement has worn off a little bit too - the occupant of the crater has been lying there for about thirty minutes now and it's gotten to the point where a couple of enterprising birds have landed on nearby trees on the off chance there's a snack to be had. They're only metaphorically correct.

A hand the colour of Baharat spices reaches for the edge of the pit. Jasper Inkra emerges, standing, blinking, staring in all directions at the quiet Fortitude afternoon. It doesn't matter from how close or far away you see her, her face is always indistinct and her eyes are always perfectly, agonizingly in focus. There's tears in them - hurt, confusion, fear. But then they fix upon the lighthouse and they harden with resolve and compassion.

She steps towards the old stone structure. Lays her hand upon it, body alight with divine energy. And she speaks unto the building, "I am very sorry, sir, that I struck you. I swear that it was unintentional and I shall work with all my strength to restore you to your former grace and glory."

There is no reply. That is okay. It is only polite to wait. She is in the wrong here, after all, and will accept whatever judgement this strange giant chooses to pass upon her.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

Jasper Inkra
The Child of the Sun

Star Sign: All of the stars eclipsed in blackest midnight, weeping together in darkness for their fallen sister
Grades (Art): A's
Grade (other): Pity C's
Athletics: Like a salmon climbing an escalator - a lot of muscle and perseverance but still doing something pretty fundamentaly wrong.
Blood type: you probably don't want a transfusion of Jasper's blood
Animal: Golden Retriever
Favorite food: Halloumi, baked with honey

Bonus XP
Players use gratitude hands (e.g., hand-on-fist bow, hand-to-heart, fist-bump) because...
...their character’s gratitude to you/your PC reached the player’s heart.
...you/your PC supported/played up their character concept/direction.

Will 6/8
Miracle Points 5/5

Skills
Courtly Manners 3
Incarnation of the Sun 2
Riding 1
Art 1
Lore 1

Health Levels
3 Normal
1 Tough
3 Divine

Powers
You are functionally immortal.
You can influence the weather and the sky with your mundane actions.
You can radiate hope.
If you’re ever sufficiently broken to show the other side of your nature, you can radiate disillusionment or despair instead.
You can send out your consciousness in a sunbeam.
The nuclear furnace of your stomach can digest basically anything.
You can in theory turn into a gigantic sun-kaiju thing.

Bonds
The Prodigy 2 - She fascinates me
Little Island 1 - I love little island, though I don't feel ready to live there
Nightmare's Angel - She's startling, but somehow I kind of get her.

Quests

Quests!

The Light of Hope 4/9
You’re the light of hope now. You’ve got to do your mother’s job. That means shining on the darkness in people’s lives—not necessarily to fix them, but to give that darkness a bit of the endless light and warmth that you have inside you.

Gain 1XP whenever you do sunny things

A Mortal Life 3/15
You’re new to the lower world. You’re an alien here, and you spend a lot of time alternating between failure to understand what’s going on and figuring this place out.
Once per scene, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest by proposing a theory about how something in the lower world, or Fortitude in general, works, or how the sun interacts with the world.

The Miracle 2/21
As we’ve mentioned, you’re the sun—the actual new sun, not just a child of the old one. You’re the rightful ruler of the sky and an important religious/ritual figure in Town.
This quest builds towards your first real miracle, the first real sign that that’s so:
A miracle, in answer to death; or, a miracle, commanding the powers and principalities of the sky.

The HG can award you 5 XP towards this quest when...
...you have a traumatic transformation or dissociation scene in play, where your reality gets weird because your true nature is changing or revealing itself.
...you see a confusing vision, nightmare, or premonition of your or someone else’s death.
...you meet and get the chance to help a mysterious child find their way.
You can earn each bonus once, for a total of 15 XP.

1/chapter, you can earn a bonus XP towards this quest when...
...wrestling with/expressing nameless feelings of loss that make you act unnaturally
...trying and failing to burn things, to light them on fire
...getting confused about who and where you are
...listening to stories about things that were lost when Jade Irinka died
...talking with somebody about your destiny/nature and what it means
...talking with somebody about why there’s such a thing as death
...dealing with acne, braces, your period, ear infections, or other annoyingly intrusive elements of physicality.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

You crash down onto the roots, clinging Hornet tightly to your chest. Your ears are ringing, full of destruction and the not-sound of that terrible explosion, and there's for a moment nothing to see when you turn back and look at the sea, just inky shadows covering up the collapse, blotting out everything. No, wait, you do see something, as your eyes start to cut through even that magical night: the ink-black shells of the Garthim sliding into the water. If anyone else survived... they'll soon be in Oberon's hands. But you haven't been noticed.

Or at least you haven't yet. That'll change if Hornet starts crying, which she is threatening to do, sniffling and gasping with a hoarse throat, tucking her knees up to her chest and slowly rocking back and forth. "I didn't mean to do it," she whimpers.

Oh. Hornet.

@Tatterdemalion

It's jarring to think that Hornet came to the same conclusion she did. Adila was so used to thinking of Hornet as careless at best, to hear that... self-recrimination in her voice tilted her. She identified this as a failure. How many times had she been blamed for failures and accidents? Adila... knew a thing or two about what that was like.

+Shh, shh, it's okay,+ Adila thought, trying to keep the thoughts brief and hurried so they didn't reach out to the oily shapes of the Garthim. +We've got to go, it's okay,+ she wished she could focus. This wasn't the time to be in the open - whatever had shot them out of the sky was still out there, and taking the fight to the Garthim would just make her a target. She needed to back them up and lay and ambush to rescue the others, so she carried Princess Hornet across the roots, heart wrenching with each little sniffle.

Fellowship: The Heart

"They think I'm a what," Ailee politely requests clarification. "You want me to do what."

She takes the flask anyway, because now she knows where your flask is and she never misses an opportunity - but she takes a pretty dramatic slam from it instead of splashing it on herself. The tendrils of electric green energy around her become bladed, opening up with beautiful violet eyes like peacock feathers as the essence of Pride rises to the fore.

And then, voice raw and husky from the drink, she speaks in a tone that passes beyond conscious understanding. Her language embeds itself in the mind of the terrier and bar patrons alike and if they are not capable of understanding it drags their very consciousness up through as many spheres of enlightenment as necessary to ensure they can understand.

"I am not to be trifled with," she says in that terrible language. "Control yourselves."

[Talk Sense: 11; Holy Command ensures that everyone and everything understands me.]

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

It is 20XX+3. It is the future.

@Sarahphim!

"Hands in the air! Do it now!"

You knew what you were getting into

In a way, you kind of have to respect the training and discipline of Dominus' troopers. Armed with only a handful of discount off-brand Impersonation Rigs they've spent over twenty four hours pretending to be wooden mannequins before revealing themselves all at once. Now they're a dozen hard-bitten soldiers with assault rifles aimed at you, wearing all of your rejected dresses/suits/etc. And frankly? None of them are pulling it off at all.

Dominus has planned this perfectly. You had backups just in case you needed to costume switch mid-ceremony if your first dress got damaged, but now your entire range is in danger at once - there's no way to fight all of these guys and girls without destroying your entire fashion range at once.

Errant!

"Reach for the sky,"

You knew what Sara was getting you into.

DeathGun69 has chosen a good time to make her approach - stepping out in her extremely edgy goth-leather bridesmaid gown, studded with metal, holding her totally badass signature death gun that's, like, got flame decals and stuff on it. Skull facepaint for that additional edge. She's waited until you've finished getting into your bridal dress, assessing - correctly - that you would be much less inclined to get into a firefight that put at risk this extremely expensive brand-new dress.

Besides her, SSJ2Rick and BloodHackerXxX have gagged and bound JuneBird who was helping you get into your dress. They're both wearing similarly edgy bridesmaid dresses, a look that SSJ2Rick is pulling off way better than the other two - he's actually got some vampire style to him, unlike the 'powerful magnet dragged through a hot topic bargain bin' vibe the other two have.

It's not a surprise to see them, though. You kind of knew exactly what was coming after the news report that these losers broke Comstar out of prison.

Brainstorm!

You had no idea what you were getting into.

On the left of you is an eight foot tall glowing lady with extreme drunk-mom energy who has introduced herself as 'Ourania' and has been hitting on you all night. On the right of you is @Tigerphim who is a literal massive bengal tiger who's had at least two attempts at eating you before being caught one handed by Ourania. Right now Ourania is reaching over you, giving you a face full of arms and elbows, as she pats the deeply purring tiger and - did she just ask the tiger if she wanted to come back to her place afterwards!? Ourania!!

These are the worst seats in the house. You need to get out of this.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Part of Adila is, of course, screaming. Every interaction she's had with Hornet using technology has been a disaster, she has no sense of priority or scale, the responsible thing to do is to physically remove her from the engine room until there's a problem serious enough to roll the dice over...

But she doesn't do that. She just stands there holding the panel like a big dork. An awkward silence as she tries to find the thoughts. +Hey. Princess Hornet,+ she thought awkwardly. +So... um...+

She's got no idea where she's going with this. Hornet very clearly isn't being careless. She wasn't careless last time either, with the drill... or in the castle... or in the Bazaar. There's a grim motion to her work, no laughter, not even a smile.

When was the last time she saw her smile?

She hovers half in the doorway, holding that panel like it's a wall she doesn't know how to climb.

*

There's a terrible moment of vindication when everything explodes.

She moves like black lightning, all the uncertainty collapsing back into instinct. She crosses the engine deck faster than fire, snatching up Hornet without losing a second of momentum before crashing through the hull to the open air beyond. Her wings expand to catch the breeze but instead are filled with razor darkness and only then does Adila realize that Hornet isn't to blame for this.

She folds up, tumbles, dives, tries her best to power through the shadows. She's an obsidian comet with a trail of autumn fire fabric in her wake.

Fellowship: The Heart

Emerald fire coils and burns. Binding symbols ignite all along soft white fur. The lanterns gutter, the world grows darker, and twisting tendrils of energy from beyond surround her. An Emperor might not have the power in their finger that Ailee does then - see how she gestures with her entire body, slender frame ignited with the might of the Heart itself, a posture for directing armies to their deaths. Her enunciation is perfect - breath from the base of the diaphragm, neck straight and sharp, each movement of the jaw expertly rehearsed, the flash of teeth in between each syllable dangerous and intimate. She speaks with her entire body and soul and the cosmos hears her command.

"CURIOSITY," she declares with the authority of King Dragon, and points at Lucien.

The dog changes targets.