EVENT ★ OSKA BURNING

[futurologists]

The scene that greets you after the mist of world hopping fades isn’t a pretty one. You may remember Oska from your first, brief trip here — it was a stately, serene place, a grand castle usually wreathed in low lying clouds or gently sunny. Not so today. The damage done to Chantes by the demons and chimeras pales in comparison to what has been done to Oska. Only one tower of the formerly impressive castle stands upright, the others have been knocked down and torn to rubble, some of which is still smoldering or in flickering flames. Most of the castle has been flattened, entire rooms torn apart and laid to waste. No exterior wall is without gaping holes, as if some army and their immense battering ram had needed a whole collection of entrances to storm this castle. Nothing is untouched, and worst of all, the underground larder seems to have been completely buried in a fall of rocks from the kitchen’s exterior wall. Even if you were able to dig it up, it’s dubious much of the food is unspoiled or intact. If there is any up side to all of this destruction, it’s that no bodies can be found amid the mess, human or otherwise. Even the livestock are missing. Personal effects can be dug out of the ruins, and it seems very clear that this castle was populated until recently. There remains not one soul to tell what happened, though. Well, almost not one soul. The network that usually connects the jewelry is completely nonfunctional. Attempting to access it only brings up one static message, repeating for as long as you care to listen to it: Something [ SHHKT ] --rrible has happ-- [ The message cuts out frequently, replaced with static. ] The-- [ shhhhhhkt ] came, they destroyed everything and n-- [ The static fades slightly. ] We’re trapped. You’re on your own. But please, we ne-- [ shhkt ] your help. They’re still here. There’s worse to come. But when you [ SHKT ] --ind them, you can’t kill them. They need to be questioned. We mus-- [ shhhhkt ] know their motivations. Some of the new recruits… they’re in the dungeons. You need to he-- [ shkt ] them, please. They can still be saved. SURVIVAL The dungeons are, of course, the only part of the castle left intact enough to present a challenge to escape. Some newcomers will find themselves lost in a labyrinth of cell-lined corridors, able to wander for hours before stumbling across any hint of daylight. How that’s even possible with most of the castle destroyed is anyone’s guess. Other newcomers might even be locked into the cells, with keys left nearby but just out of reach — or not. Better hope some sort of escape artist happens across you, if you’re one of those unlucky arrivals. Food isn’t going to be easy to come across. You might try digging out the larder, but not much food can be salvaged from it. Are you going to put in the work to dig up a single shelf of intact loaves of bread, a cold roast chicken locked in a wood stove, and one barrel of apples? Maybe you try scavenging in the small, abandoned village outside the castle. This will uncover some food, but not much. Most of the food out there is either rotted through or missing entirely. You might find enough to last one person two days on your own, but who knows how long you’ll need it to last? Wherever you find your food, if you find your food, rationing is highly recommended. Water isn’t so simple to find, either. There is a lake not far outside the castle walls, but the water in it tastes rancid, a sign to any right-thinking person that it’s no good to drink. Anyone brave or stupid enough to push through the taste and drink it anyway will find there aren’t actually any adverse effects, but is it worth the risk? Water can otherwise be found in very small amounts, collected by rainfall in buckets, on indented stones, in mislaid pots. It won’t be much, but if you search diligently it’s enough to keep you going. Shelter will be a little easier to find… at least, at first. No one is using any of the beds in the village, they’re free to pick from as long as you don’t mind the eerie silence. If your character is particularly awful at scavenging, please see the end of this post. HELL WEEK Survival aside, that still leaves the question: just what did happen here? Characters are welcome to dig through the ruins for hints at what fate may have befallen Oska. We have provided a thread here to sign up to find belongings or other little signs of life, and try to piece together the picture. But what about that culprit, mentioned in the broadcast? Some characters will be able to stumble across very, very specific clues — riddles and puzzles, purposefully laid to guide the finders toward… something. Who knows what lies at the end of this oddly deliberate trail? You can sign up to find and solve the puzzles here. Day one in Oska is easy enough to survive, an almost peaceful acclimation to the dismal scene. Things get a little bit tougher from there, though. On day two the ground begins to shake. It’s just little tremors at first, easy to miss if you’re not standing still. But by mid morning they’re large quakes, enough to break some structures further. The quakes continue through the night and into day three, when they are large and severe enough to throw someone off their feet, tear apart a house, and even open wide chasms in the ground. They come with unpredictable frequency, anything between five minutes to three hours, but they definitely come more closely together as time passes. The village is safer at this point, without quite so many stones to shift and crush you, although those chasms are still a concern. Come the evening of day three, the quakes stop entirely. A soft rainfall begins to patter down instead — still thirsty? Now is your chance to find some battered coffee tin and gather your drink. The rainfall continues steadily overnight, and by the morning of the fourth day it is a torrential downpour. It never lets up, not even once, and soon the water is more than the ground can handle. Flooding begins at this point, just a few inches deep in some places, more formidable in others. This also lasts for two days, and by the end of the fifth day in Oska most of the village is washed out. You’ll have better luck among the sturdy stones of the castle. Remember that still-standing castle tower? It’s not exactly the most structurally sound thing, but it is definitely out of the water. The water stops very suddenly at sundown on the fifth day, affording a pretty peaceful, clear night. Come dawn of the sixth day, however, heavy clouds move to obscure the sunrise. They seem to flame around the edges in the light of it, and then in the middles. That’s clearly not sunlight lighting up those clouds by this point. The clouds flash from within as they build more and more heavily, but no lightning has ever been that flickering golden color. At midmorning the first drops begin to fall: not rain this time, but liquid fire. By noon the firestorm is at full strength. It swings between sheets of fire pelting down, and clearing up only to pelt down great fireballs. The rain-drenched village and castle can only fend off the rain for so long. Eventually the water evaporates and anything that can burn will burn. Time your ventures out into the weather very carefully, because the firefall never lets up for long, and that’s the kind of downpour you don’t want to be caught in. OOC INFO Is your character awful at survival? Can’t scavenge to save their life, completely out of food and water and about to expire? Wherever they fall asleep, they’ll wake up with a small, inexplicable wrapped bundle left next to their head. Within will be a half an apple, a single leg of chicken, and a very small canteen of water. This log will last for one week, and there will be new information available on the 17th. As per our informal poll, this log will last ICly for one week, and OOCly for two. There will be new information available on the 24th. What the setting will be from here will depend on characters' ability to work together to catch whoever is responsible for these events. You can sign up to find hints about the people who lived here and what may have happened to them here, and puzzles left by the perpetrator leading to the discovery of them on this post. Please direct any questions here.

Comments

FOR RIN.

[futurologists]

The answers won from various puzzles spell out STABLE. It might seem too easy that it could really point to the stables in the courtyard, but at least worth checking, right? That is, if Rin can manage to dart there between brief gaps in the falling fire. Things get a little easier around the stables themselves, though. As a giant, primarily wooden structure, one might expect them to be completely incinerated by now — but they stand strong, and in fact, fire seems to fall only around the stables, never on.

It’s also worth noting that the wide, main door to the structure stands wide open, invitingly so.

[defenceless]

Easy, but oftentimes it's the easiest solution that makes sense. Magi live a life of puzzles and enchantments, so she's not too surprised she managed to lift some sort of clue from the messages left behind. She would be a bit disappointed with herself, really, if she could think of no way to continue.

Her link with Archer is always present for her safety, of course, though Archer is not physically (or even spiritually) at her side. She approaches the stables carefully, finally here after a painstaking journey filled with literally raining flames, but the wood's invincibility does tilt her head. Hmm. A barrier? A protective field?

It won't matter if she's cautious.

Eager to slip under the stables' fire-deflecting boundary for herself, she steps over to the door—but lingers at the edge, curiously and quietly peering inside.

[uruzology]

It's dark inside the stables as it has been all week, and for a moment there's no sign of life. Then there's a jingle, something like a horse's tackle, and a voice:

"It's okay, you can come in! You've seen the end of puzzles and such, I promise."

And should Rin step inside, there's a woman with arms crossed comfortably across the window ledge of one of the stalls, smiling warmly and apparently perfectly happy standing in the stall itself. She looks human enough aside from the pointed ears, but the right angle will show a heavy, draft horse body stretching back from where she stands.

[defenceless]

With her senses alert the sounds—and more importantly, the voice—capture her scrutiny instantly. Whoever's speaking seems friendly enough, but Rin knows better than to just... blindly trust...

Despite that, she ventures inside at a slow and guarded pace, not bothering to welcome herself right up to this woman, yet. Instead, she halts still close to the entrance. And Rin isn't smiling. A swift glance across the stall confirms it: this isn't a human. It's a centaur? She's confused, her brow furrowing.

"You're the one who set all the puzzles?" she asks.

[uruzology]

The smile doesn't leave the woman's face; she's patient. New recruits are skittish, and especially after a week like they've had. No one could blame this girl.

"That's right," she says, tone going a little more gentle. "Well, I didn't set them all, I had some help, but I thought them up! They were quite good, weren't they?"

[defenceless]

"They definitely made me think, if that's what you're asking." Rin shifts to place a hand on her hip while she stands. "What exactly is going on, here? You have to know puzzle solving isn't easy with natural disasters waiting around every corner."

[uruzology]

"Oh, sure, that's the point."

She swings the stable door open and steps out. She would be a large woman, even without the horse parts, and she stands a good eight feet tall. The ceilings here are built to accommodate even taller needs than hers, though, and not even doorways are an issue. She nods toward the darker interior of the stable, inviting Rin to walk along with her in a glance.

"The ability to think clearly under duress, that's a quality ALASTAIR wants. The business of handlings worlds isn't all a walk in the park, you know," she explains. "But you've done it! Congratulations, Rin, isn't it? I'm Uruz."

[defenceless]

Surprisingly, all Rin does in response is drop her face into her hands.

"You've got to be kidding me...!" she groans. She's definitely complaining, and maybe it's so important to whine she doesn't care how she comes off to Uruz for it. The girl just congratulated for having a cool head is bemoaning her fate; this is part of the Rin Tohsaka experience. You're welcome, Uruz.

"It really was a training exercise. Sheesh, it makes me mad they would put children through this, they didn't ask for this—"

But after shaking her head, Rin strides into the interior of the stables like it was just another room. The unspoken message is clear: she's willing to follow. Not even Uruz's height scares her, as her eyes tentatively rise from her hands.

"The Holy Grail War isn't a walk in the park, either. Still, thank you, Uruz. You have the right name, I'm Rin. It's nice to meet you." Oh. "Don't try to kill me, or he'll probably try to kill you. That's just a fair warning." She can't forget about Archer.

[uruzology]

She waits for Rin to catch up before starting forward herself, and aims a quick grin over at her.

"Only probably?" She's had a lot of time to keep an eye on the new recruits this week. But Archer's potential levels of vindication aren't what she's here to talk about, and she moves on from it quickly. She claps her hands, shooting a glance upward.

"Cherenkov, Crowley, be dears and turn the game off, won't you? And give us some lights while you're at it." Nothing happens for a while, and they're left walking through the dark stable. It's long enough to elicit a sigh, and under her breath, she adds, "They're good sorts, but they do take their sweet time..."

And then, with a pop, there are lights. Lit lanterns burn in sconces along the wall, and though the weather hadn't been bothering the stables enough to make much of a difference, all across Oska the fire suddenly stops pouring down. The water damage is gone, the ruin by earthquakes is no more, even the castle is fully restored.

Not, of course, that much of it can be seen from inside. Uruz smiles.

"There we go. Again, congratulations, and — oh, do you have any questions?"

[defenceless]

Don't worry. Even if it can't be seen, Rin assumes the restoration is taking place—a reversal of the "game", as Uruz put it, and the magus is more relieved than she'll admit openly. Those recruits on their team she'd worried most about—Sieglinde, Dipper, Steven, Sakura, the newbies, Papyrus, Koltira, Gintoki and even that drunkard Rick—will maybe have a chance to catch a break. She releases a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"First," Rin begins in a faintly imperial voice, lowering her lids. The most important things are first, of course.

"What's my reward?"

[uruzology]

"Oh, yes, your reward!"

She twists around and reaches back along the horse half of her body, digging into a saddlebag. From it she brings out a short length of black velvet rope, with a fasten at one end and a hand loop at the other, complete with a few studded amethysts at each. She hands it over with a smile.

"For your cygnet," she says.

[defenceless]

There we go, the material goodness. Rin's eyes sparkle a little as she accepts the offered leased, shimmering with violet jewels. Sometimes, gems are a girl's best friend. "She's not quite a baby anymore," she admits distractedly, before neatly folding up the rope in her arms. "It'll be all the more useful in that case, as she's being an enormous pain, lately." Caring for a stuffy young swan in a doomsday scenario hasn't been pleasant.

Regarding any other questions she has, however: "I've got to know, Uruz. The little trinkets and clues left around for us outside of the puzzles—for god's sake, even all the imagery in that game world you created—was there any kind of meaning to it? Or was it just 'flavor' to keep us guessing?"

[uruzology]

"Oh, sure!" She looks a little delighted that Rin would ask about it.

"Fun as it would be to throw it in at random and keep you all stumbling about, the whole lot came from Nalawi." She says it casually, as if of course that's a place Rin is familiar with, why wouldn't she be? "A bit of recreation from recent history, relative to when you'll be there. Some artistic liberty, of course, there are no castles in Nalawi. But you'll like it there, I think! I've been before, it's a lovely place."

[defenceless]

Fun... Right. She thinks she has much different ideas of what constitutes "fun" compared to Uruz. (Why is she this lighthearted when ALASTAIR's work has to be very serious, in the end?)

Rin adopts a wry sort of smile as her head turns away slightly. "Nalawi." She allows the syllables to float past her tongue. Initially her suspicion was that it was someone's name, until Uruz confirms it's a location: a place, a planet(?), the setting of their next mission, possibly. "I see."

She bites her bottom lip, then pops out another question not long after. "Look, I don't want to be rude, but who are you? Are you one of our superiors in ALASTAIR? The same goes for those other two. Cherenkov, Crowley. Those were the names, I believe."

[uruzology]

Uruz looks a little puzzled by the question, head cocked quizzically.

"Oh, no. I've been with ALASTAIR for quite some time now, so newbie orientations tend to fall to me, is all. And Cherenkov and Crowley, they're just the pair running the game for you." She's back to a smile again, if slightly more tentative. Now and then new arrivals get so fixated on chain of command, she never knows who will make a fuss.

[defenceless]

Once her gaze draws back to Uruz, it's fairly clear Rin does not necessarily know how to deal with that answer, but the issue of leadership in ALASTAIR also isn't especially one she's going to nag on. A senior recruit was "orienting" the newer batch, as she describes it. That's logical, and the entire process holds true to ALASTAIR, honestly.

"You must have been evaluating all of us, over the days," Rin suggests next. "How did we stack up? Did we do better than expected or are we a bunch of doozies?"

[uruzology]

This is a question she's clearly more excited about. Her smile brightens, and she says, "Quite well in Oska! None of you are dead, I don't think any of you even came close to it. And you passed all the puzzle tests with flying colors, and in particular the musical puzzle came out very nicely. It was, I think, Alice who stumbled into that one? If you see her before I do, please pass along my compliments!"

And as far as the task before that, in Chantes... well, she'll get to that later. She steps neatly past the topic.

[defenceless]

"So recruits can die on ALASTAIR missions."

She neatly cuts to that piece of what Uruz tells her. It's abrupt, but surely the woman couldn't scold her. They're practically forced to work for ALASTAIR in order to return home, and it's not the most pleasant news that some of them may die—or have already died?—in the process.

Rin crosses her arms. "I'll talk to Alice." Chantes isn't even mentioned. If the mission went horribly, well... Archer eliminated the greatest threat, they can take up their complaints with him and her if it wasn't what ALASTAIR would have advised. Plenty in Chantes was working against them. She showed up as a recruit only about halfway through the mission, so the results may have been out of many pairs of hands.

"—That's about that, I suppose. Everything else I doubt you'll be able to answer. All I can recommend is that ALASTAIR makes time to clarify a few things with us and open themselves up for discussion sooner rather than later.

My Servant and I will work for you. I will not turn my back on the world I left behind me, though."

[uruzology]

"Oh, recruits can die anywhere; it's not all fun and games," she says, tone light.

Their walk seems to be about over, having lead to the central area of the stables. It's wide and spacious and well lit, complete with a hexagonal skylight in the center of the room, through which is blue sky touched in the West by sunset.

"ALASTAIR appreciates your willingness to work with us, Rin. And more than that, you're doing good work for the Timeline. It's to the benefit of even your own world, in the end." Her tone has finally shifted from light and cheerful to something a little more genuinely grateful, and she spreads her arm toward the nearest exit, conveniently pointed straight to the front hall of the castle. It's a vastly improved sight out there, with Oska restored and the castle standing in its full glory.

"You'll see a bit more of me soon — I'll be speaking to the lot of you via jewelcom shortly. Let me know if you think of any more questions!"

[defenceless]

The "Timeline". Rin has never heard of such a concept referred to that way before, but she's spent too much time studying magecraft not to suspect the existence of large constructs like what the Timeline must be. If she had to guess, it's the literal, actual timeline of all worlds in some form, and what ALASTAIR has been established to protect.

For now, her eyes tilt up briefly to peek at the arriving sunset, and she stops to scope out the exit indicated by Uruz, breath nearly taken away by the beauty. These more experienced recruits essentially trapped them inside their own Reality Marble and occupied them there completely, for several days.

"Will do. Goodbye, Uruz, and thank you for everything." In the end, she does smile and send a small wave towards the centaur-woman. Not all of this was orchestrated by her, and besides, she has a feeling Uruz is more like her pack of displaced recruits than she is a real stranger, or an enemy. Don't fight the messenger, indeed. "You don't have to worry about me. I know how to set my priorities."

Does she? That probably remains to be seen, and Rin is young and Archer stumbles, but the core of her has always been brutally aware of what's ultimately necessary and what isn't—to the surprise of others. With her farewell, Rin is gone, strolling off in the direction of the castle.