Lords of Creation, The Second Age

[Zaleramancer]

Today was a special day in the land of Gammara.

A day of celebration and mirth for some, and a day for bittersweet remembrance for others.

For today was the day when the first -and hopefully- final brawl among those divine occurred.

The Festival of Dancing Monsters began today. It was born as a way to steal away fear, to blur out hatred. A day to bring all peoples together, to turn a tragedy into a celebration.

And in Spectropolis, it was one of the biggest holidays of the year. A week of parties and song, of food and drink, of laughter and stories.

No expense was spared. The city was a whole was dressed up in brightness. Colored lamps and candles bestowed every available surface, brightly colored awnings shaded the streets. Bands marched through the crowded streets, people danced on rooftops and in and out of houses. The smells of food and incense and perfume filled the air, mixing with the cheerful sounds of children watching magic shows, both authentic and not.

Above streets and plazas spun and spat living fireworks, things of Draemar Sorcery, crackling fire and sparks given form. Dragons and great birds, witches and demons danced in the air, clashing and moving, diving and exploding. Theatres exploded with audiences coming to see reenactments of the dramatic battles and sorrowful endings, of fights won and demons slain. Children ran through the streets, wearing masks of old faces. The snarling image of the Monster King, the smooth facade of the Watchman, the hooked nose and mischievous wink of Zaya, the beautiful and hearts-topping face of Uburra-Namal, the kind face of Crav, the powerful visage of Mina and more.

The gods themselves had intervened to ensure that the next week would have nothing but clear skies. As fitting for a god of rituals, Hazet's Bright Singers were in full attendance. The spun and danced with fireworks, sung in temples and houses and generally did their best to enhance the festivals. Temples burst at the seams, as mortals of all shades and stripes made offerings to their gods.

A time of excitement and joy was upon the world.

[Philote]

A humming fills the air, only audible to those with the keenest senses but drawing the attention of everyone's subconscious with the tug of something primal.

Far away from the celebrations taking place in Spectropolis, a spirit stirred. A spark of divinity, not quite extinguished, waking from its near fatal slumber. The spark, resting in a bed of stone but now awaking and arising from its earthy tomb to float up through dark waters. Its old form returned, a shell of metal to vessel its powers of creation.

Across the world, technology and magic both react to the sparks presence. Starting off small, the mortal's works are strengthened, their outputs are increased. The reaction builds and grows, spreading like and infection reaching up to the Spirits of the land. The mighty Divine Artifacts come alive, shining with a brilliance that their dimmed forms had not held in so long. The life blood of the planet can be felt flowing again.

Anima's weak new form washes up on the banks of Hazet's land. The Spirit of Power had awakened to resume its place in the foundation of land land. The surging renewal of power across the world begins to reside, returning to a regulated pace instead of a dimmed prelude to death.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"So why are you so dedicated to being miserable?" Shouted a girls voice.

Two figures flew the length of Spectropolis, passing over the gates where the revelers were, even now, streaming in. Normally, the foot rout wouldn't be half as populated. No one used it any more, not since the war had started and made it dangerous for ant group to be in the desert without as escort. But not today. Today it was jammed packed, and not only because the The Festival was going on.

"I am not miserable." Said a voice that sounded like over 2 dozen people all talking at once. "I'm doing my job."

The second figure sailed under the first, level with him, and folded her arms. "Your always miserable when you're on the job. It's a thing with you."

The Watchman stared down at the Babysitter in silence, before making a dismissive hand gesture. "Look, I've finally been able to get the Queens of the Vandals and Fomor-Gravi to the negotiation table. I thought we god lucky when we managed the truce. This could be the end of all the fighting in the desert."

They passed over one of the many bands of Bedouin shifters that wandered the sands around Spectropolis, heading into the city for the celebration.

"But it's not your jooooooob." The Babysitter complained. "The Reasonable is supposed to handle things like this. You should, by all right, have a day off."

"You know how he gets on this day." Was the Watchman's only reply.

She sighed. Right. He was really in no mood to settle any dispute. Not today. "Still, how is he the only one now working today?"

"The Veteran is handling security at the negotiations, Custodes is making sure that the Festival doesn't go out of control, and Omni knows where the Spymaster is."

"AUGGGGGGGGGGG," said the Babysitter, running her hands down her face. "Everyone is always doing something! I put this whole thing together partially for you guys, and you all just blow me off every year! I'm sick of it."

The Watchman comes to a sudden stop and rights himself. The Babysitter stops just seconds after, floating up to meet him. He sighs, and puts his hand on her shoulder. "Look....I......I know you've been feeling left out lately. There's just been so much going on, with the war, and the whole Milteo situation, and the Iris Network, and the Gills..... I'm making excuses." He says, shaking his head. "The festival will last a few more days. I promise, I'll make time."

She eyes his suspiciously. "All of you? We'll do something together?"

"I promise."

The girls face softens, and she gives his a light punch in the arm. "No weaseling out!"

"I promise. Thrice and done." He repeat. He reaches out a hand to rustle her hair. "Now, you're lucky enough to have a job you love. Best get back to it." He says in good humor. "I have no idea how the festival could possibly spiral out of control without it's MC present. I'm sure there's some international incident you could cause."

She pushes his hand away, smiles, salutes, and shoots off back toward the vibrant city. He watched her go, then makes his way out into the lonely desert.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

Koneko looked out at the festivities in the streets and smiled in remembrance of some of the past festivals, especially the first one when all of the Heroes of Gammara, sans Aox had attended. That had been the year after the Nightmare Invasion and had been set up first by the Babysitter out of the blue.

Since then, many of the heroes had died or gone into a hibernation with the help of the gods, until they would be needed again. The only ones left awake and alive were her and a few of Gilgamesh's. Sighing once more in her long life, Koneko turned back to reviewing the dossiers of the two entrants of her people into the tournament this year and practitioners of the Twin Flowers style: Corona Couture and Blodwen duQuel.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

As the festivities continued, out in the desert, the sand suddenly began swirling as if quicksand with someone stuck in it and out came a woman with an eyepatch, a slightly tattered-looking cloak, and a large sword with its hilt in the shape of a Gaelic Cross on her back. Without loking back as the sand stopped swirling, she quickly ran towards a city that she could see in the distance: Spectropolis.

A few minutes after she left, the sand swirled again and five swords appeared and shot off in the direction the woman had run off in.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Koneko hears something strange coming from an alley nearby.

It's hard to not be near an alley in this city. It's been jokingly said that Spectropolis is a city of 95% backalleys. It's not that much of an exaggeration.

Raised voices are coming out of this one, interspaced with thuds and hasty scraping sounds.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

Sighing yet again, Koneko put away the dossiers in her bag and walked over to see what was going on. From what she'd been told by the Shadow-Scarred and Hengeyokai information network, Spectropolis had had fighting in the area around it by the Vandals and Fomor-Gravi, but not within the city itself, so it couldn't be that, it was possibly either just generic brawling, probably with the style of the residents themselves since this was a festival, or it could be practitioners of Pitching arguing with one another. Taking a deep breath, Koneko entered the allyway and, without checking what was going on, asked in a voice befit of the eader of Môsôoriku and one of the oldest mortals (though not indicative of her child-like appearance), "What is going on in here? Today is a day of  celebration, not of brawling or arguing."

[Zaleramancer]

"What.. is this?"

A young woman kneeled over the prone automaton. She was of the Draemar, a golden skinned beauty dressed in the typical coastal fashion, all loose robes and cooling clothing. The traditional leis of the coastal festivals were draped around her neck.

She prodded the thing with a sandal-clad foot.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Almost like a exclamation point to her speech, a crack rings out as a mans head is brought to bare against another mans knee. The poor recipient falls away, face bleeding, and this causes a resounding "OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH" to go up from the peanut gallery.

What Konako is 6 people in the alley. A man with wild white hair, dressed in blue, lightning bolt stitched into his shirt. Farther down the alley the other 5 are all in oranges or red and look much younger than the man. One of them lay unconscious at his feet. Every single one of the red people have their teethe bared toward the lightning bolt one. You could were that their growling.

Above them, watching from a rooftop and trying to recover from a fit of laughter are there black carapaced Fomor-Gravi. One of them manages to get their voice under control enough to shout, "Yeah, you go Red Claws. You're so bad! C'mon, c'mon, I want to see this guy put another of you on the floor!"

Other than that, the intrusion of the Imp had seemed to, for now, stave off any violence that had been about to occur.

[Zaleramancer]

In the midst of the crowded streets, a small group surrounded an entertainer.

She was, or seemed to be, a coppery skinned human dressed in exotic clothing consisting of mostly flowers- and very few of them. Perhaps because of this, young men made up most of the crowd.

The girl danced with fire. Twirling torches and smoking scarves. She spun and twisted in elaborate patterns.

With a quick inhalation, she breathed in the fire from the torch.

A roaring gout of flame flew from her lips with her next breath.

Internally, Lo raised an eyebrow. That had been bigger than expected. It wasn't like her to loose control.

She bowed to the assembled mortals and began collecting the coins and monies from them, smiling and flirting automatically while her thoughts whirled.

Lo had been stalking covertly in the city for a few months now. She'd been cashing in big on the desert arms trade and recent rumors of a possible truce had forced her to get closer in hopes of meddling.

Bowing once more to the crowd, she bustled off into an alley, passing by people. A small flash of red light jumped from a window to her shoulder, materializing as a mouse-sized implet.

It whispered into her ear.

"So, the Watcher's moving to the truce. Alright. Alert my agents within the ranks. I want them to stir up a bit of conflict. Set fire to a Vandal nursery, leave carefully hidden evidence and counter-evidence."

The implet bowed and surged off as red lightning, it's signal mixing with the general magic in the air.

Lo frowned and stared up in the sky.

Had those fireworks gotten brighter or was that just her?

[Philote]

The automaton that was Anima's caretaker is unresponsive. As the woman tries to help Anima's vessel to its feet, she can feel the stiffness in its limbs and the clinging coldness that came from the depths of the ocean. As the vessel is raised, a metal lamp is revealed to be clutched tightly in the vessel's hands, sparking violently with blue electricity but not close enough to harm the Draemar woman just yet.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

Noticing that all six of the participants in the fight were Lycanthropes, Koneko's initial annoyance quickly changed into anger, "Y-y-you fools! Brawling in the middle of Spectropolis like this! I've been trying to get you all to discuss treaties rationally and now I find you BRAWLING in the middle of Spectropolis? You imbeciles!"

Koneko ran towards the wolves, appearing to suddenly disappear then reappearing behind the blue one, stating, "Clench your teeth."

[Marvelous Miscreant]

Three Days Ago – The Great City of Ah-Lomas in the Lands of Alabastra

Toby paced slowly through the silent dusk, his lantern held high to illuminate the empty yard outside the bank. Nothing was there. Nothing was ever there. Toby sighed; being a night guard was boring work. At least it paid well. Even a zombie like himself could find good work in Ah-Lomas since the Milteo uprising had begun. But the good pay did nothing to quell the boredom of guarding. Nothing interesting ever happened at night.

Toby sighed loudly once more and muttered dejectedly into the empty yard, “Just once I wish someone would try to break in so I could have something to do at least…”

Unfortunately for Toby, he was about to get his wish. At that precise moment a set of brilliant white teeth grinned in the dark behind the unwitting zombie and whispered “Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint,” before a gloved fist descended out of the night and knocked the poor night guard unconscious. Toby collapsed like a ton of bricks at the feet of one of Alabastra’s most wanted; Stohlen Redd. The Rhean leader of the Raven Cloaks, a band of thieves, pickpockets, pilfers, filches, burglars and criminals.

As if on cue, silhouettes appeared from every hiding spot conceivable in the Bank’s large lawn. Stohlen’s crew, assembled before their leader, eager eyes gleaming with the thought of bounty. Stohlen looked them over a sly grin on his hooded face. And with a single gesture sent them flocking silently into the Bank.

In the morning, the Bank’s owner, a Durhian merchant by the name of Mr. Gildrian, would find the bank completely cleaned out. Not a single shaving of gold or silver to be found. The drapes were torn from their places and the gilded door handles pried from their sockets. Even the marble stove was missing.

By that morning Stohlen and his band of thieves were already miles away, at the docks of Redsand Harbor where a rather unfortunate crew of traders took an untimely swim as their ship sailed away without them, laden with gold, silver and a rather posh marble stove.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today – The Northeast Docks Outside Spectropolis

A ship pulled lazily into harbor, its crew shouting and laughing in revelry. To any onlookers they were just another company of innocent travelers who had come to join in the festivities. But they were far from innocent. Below deck a hushed meeting took place, masked by the hoots and hollers from the upper deck.

Stohlen Redd stood facing his five most trusted hands.

Morlanna Harts, the fiery haired Boquabian lady who served as the crews designated femme fatale. She was stunningly beautiful as all Boquabians tend to be and she knew it.

Lean Finger, a quick handed Milteo who’s thinner than average claws knew their way around locks and into coin purses.

Hunt “The Ironfist” Holdan, the Draemar enforcer that provided the crew’s main source of muscle and served as an indomitable wall of metallic flesh.

Ryen of Shadewarren, a quite Elf who was quick with a bow and clever with a trap. His acrobatic skills made him the crew’s go to thief for high entry jobs.

Dr. Thadus J. Withers, a con man and swindlers by trade, his silver tongue opened many a door for the crew and found more than a few loopholes.

The five stood silently as Stohlen addressed them, his usual coy smile present on his scarred face.

“Now, you all know the plan. I expect you to keep your given groups in check for the next few days. Doctor, I expect you to find us a nice quite place to hide for the time being. Somewhere off the beaten path, but still within the city. Ryen, Hunt, and Lean Finger…you three will lead the others about the city and scope out any potential marks. Feel free to do a little stealing on the side if you want. But remember the first rule of my crew…”

“If we you’re caught, you’re on your own,” the three replied in unison.

“Too right,” Stohlen continued, “ and Morlanna,  you’ll be coming with me. I have a special task for you. Now, let’s head out and someone notify the Edgar that he and his “Companion” will be staying with the ship until we can safely move her coffin.”

As Stohlen finished the six of them exited onto the upper deck where the rest of the Raven Cloaks continued to fake revelry. As their Leader neared they straightened up and snapped to attention. Nobody ignored Stohlen Redd, not if they valued their life.

‘Alright boys and girls….MOVE OUT!”

And so the Raven Cloaks entered Spectropolis, a city unsuspecting of the plague of thieves than now beset them.

[Zaleramancer]

Standing the creature up was an effort, but the stiffness at least assured it would stay up.

The girl glanced at the lantern nervously.

"Erm. Please just stay right here. I'll bring back someone who can help."

She hoped this.. whatever it was could understand.

With another nervous glance, she began half-jogging up the beach, towards her home.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

The group of red backed down slowly, their mouths closed but their muscles still tensed and ready.

The blue one did not move toward or away from them. One of the Red Claws darted forward, nervously gathering up his fallen comrade.

Up on the roof, the peanut gallery made it's displeasure known with load groans, as if they'd just been told it was time for bed. One of them stood up indignantly. "Oh come on, let the boys have their fun. This is the most entertainment we've gotten all day. They're just gonna do the same thing next week anyway."

"I didn't start this fight." The blue Lycan says, steadily. "They lead these men to me."

The head Fomor-Gravi answers cheerfully. "With the truce on, we aren't allowed to mess with Vandals. Gotta get our fun some way. After all, this is a day for fun, isn't it?"

Then, one of them gets a good look at Koneko and gasps with shock. "Hey, I know her. I've seen her picture in the paper. That the president."

The other two get a good look, and smile as wide as their carapace allows. "Holy shit, it is the president,." One of them says, "Ms. President, Ms. President, what are you plans for ending all this awful clan violence?" she says sarcastically.

The other turns to the Red Claws. "Hey, this chick has no authority here. You're Spectropolis boys, ain't ya? You gonna let a little thing like her tell you how to live your life?"

This seems to embolden the Red Claws. They mull it over, then, spreading out, begin to step forward again.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

In the middle of the festivities, at the southern gates of Spectropolis, there suddenly came an explosion of colored light as a lithe and beautiful woman appeared: Duerkripe.

Taking advantage of her (in her mind) marvelous appearance, she entered the city, her footsteps sounding out the latest hit song in Gammara that fit the current situation, (though she didn't quite know what exactly it was), and bright confetti appeared around her, swirling to the ground as the fireworks in the city seemed to grow gayer in the spirit of the celebration.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

"Oh, is that so? I hadn't been told that I don't have any authority over Lady Mina's races within Spectropolis and I'm sure that the Watchman's group wouldn't object to some... how shall we put it? Physical negotiations, hmmm?" Koneko replies as she activates a Môsôorikan spell that she'd prepared with Draemar Sorcery, causing lightning to rise up, crackling violently. Living for several hundred years had definitely been good for Koneko.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

The lightning seemed to give the Red Claws pause once again.

The Fomor-Gravi clicked her tongue. "Bunch of pussies." All three of them stood up. "Hey girls, think we're bad enough dudes to take the president?"

The three of them broke out into more giggles as the lights on their backs began to glow. The gravity surrounding Koneko suddenly became oppressive as everything started to be weighed down.

(I'm not sure weather to count these all separately or combined them, but that 3 (3) Gravity controls from the FGs)

[Zaleramancer]

A small carriage made it's slow way through the tangled mess of Spectropolis. Despite the crowds and festivities, it found no problem weeding through. Not out of sorcery or divine will, but out of respect.

It was an old, shoddy thing. Many times repaired and mended, many parts replaced. It bounced on the stones of the walls, bending and twisting through narrow alleys. The one familiar aspect it maintained over the years was the symbol emblazoned on it's side.

A spiraling silver eye. The mark of the god Paean.

Well liked among the lower classes, he supplied healing and health. Mended bones and broken fevers. Death of plagues, rather than plagues of death.

And now he wandered the streets again.

The young god glanced at the merriment. People danced. A young parents lifted their child to see parades.

He sighed.

"Four hundred years." Paean said to himself, "Well at least I have you."

The god reached forward and patted the beast that drew his carriage. A silvery beast that looked for all the world like bull from some child's fairy tale. Milk white with silver horns, it stood well above most of the people around it.

One of his many creations. He called them Aurochs. Pretty, resilient, long living. They were great beasts of burden.

Smiling he glanced back into the carriage through a carved window near his head. While usually empty of all but cots and medicines, today it was full of exotic animals.

He so loved his part in the festivities. It was a fun side-project.

So many pretty flying beasties he had made this year.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

Falling to her knees as gravity's strength suddenly rose, Koneko quickly began to analyze the situation. Ok, her attackers were three Fomor-Gravi, which meant that she was being attacked with gravity. Well, there was a simple solution to that problem and that was to show them that it didn't matter in the slightest what they could do, they wouldn't beat her. Not now, not ever. Keeping that in mind, Koneko rapidly activated four more spells using Dramar Sorcery, 3 Strides to increase her power and one spell that created a wave of raw, undiluted power that flew towards her targets.