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On Rifts and Raids

Lore, history and other content by the citizens of Underlight preserved for posterity.
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Mengyao
Dreamer
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2019 6:07 am
Character Name(s): Mengyao

On Rifts and Raids

Post by Mengyao »

Ah, what an interesting month of things happening in the Dream. Fall fell, Dreamers left and returned, some of us found ourselves, uh...Haunted by a Ghost? Another threat looms on the horizon, but before it arrives, I had a mistake to make.

Being the Ruler of the Monastery of the Shadow has been a real experience for me. For a while there, I was pretty sure that I was unfit to rule the House, and that I would never have the respect of my Family, since I hadn't accomplished nearly the same amount of things as them. One of the things that I decided to pursue to make myself feel like a big, proper Ruler, and also to pay tribute to the Keepers and Synteny and all sorts of other stupidly sentimental reasons, was an addition to the Dream called Shadowkin Abbey. It was to be shaped like the Wordsmiths guild Inside, with a nice statue honoring the Rulers of the Shadow in the middle, and the halls would have lead to a Library, for preserving the knowledge accumulated by Dreamers from the various cities, a laboratory to put the Pedantical in the Lost Caves to shame, and a real pretty little sanctuary to aid in Scrying. I wanted to help preserve the past, the present and the future of the Dream in my own little way.

So I made an agreement with the PlaneSmith by the name of Gloktr. Gloktr, if you haven't met him yet, is a really creepy guy. He walks with a limp and has a grin like a smashed china cabinet, but he does honest work. I agreed to sign off Ten permanent DreamSoul, and to clear out what Gloktr claimed to be his Workshop, the Acropolis Rift. I set about doing this in three steps: Seeking the help of Dreamers of various talents, scouting the Acropolis Rift for any potential weakpoints, and raiding the Rift.

So the first step went well enough, and I managed to attract quite a diverse crew of Dreamers. The scouting...Didn't go quite as well. Everyone fired off into the Acropolis like Emphants outta the Pits, and scattered immediately. We did, however find out that the portal in the Purgation Chamber probably leads directly into the Chaos, at least if the clouds of acid rain, essentially, are any indication. Between the scouting and the raid, something started to weigh on my consciousness. There was an egg affixed to a podium down in the place that we were going to attempt to dismantle, and I couldn't Dream comfortably with the thought of it potentially getting hurt during this whole thing. I don't believe in casting the first stone, so to speak, and this egg definitely didn't do anything to me or anyone else.

So after I stole Fae-Baal's kid, I began to realize what a bad idea that was, but Lace did mention something that stuck with me: Use the egg to barter for the Acropolis. So, I started telling the Kotoke beating my frigging door in to bring me the one Kotoke I knew I could communicate with without relying on someone else's understanding of Maren: Fae-Baal. I spoke with Fae-Baal once before, and I wasn't going to forget the sickly whispering of twisted words uttered by the Dreamer Essence she spoke to to translate, but it was my best shot at negotiations without Nmoto around. Hi, Nmoto, if you're reading this! You'll be proud of my stupid behavior at the end.

We stood in front of the Acropolis and issued an ultimatum. "Show to negotiate, or we'll take this place by force!"

No one showed.

We also didn't take the place by force, but we did wind up getting poisoned and Aileron got kidnapped. That much happened, and then Nathan noticed something...Fae-Baal was on Locate.

We ran, really fast.

We were greeted by the Matron of the Kotoke. The Mother of the Darkmare. Queen Fae-Baal herself, and Ssun-Kith, too. They were less than happy to see us and that was an understatement.

“You will all pay. I will burn your house to the ground if I have to, if you do not return what is MINE!”

So the fight began, and we fought hard against Fae-Baal and Ssun-Kith. We fought a valiant battle, but it was someone else who collapsed Fae-Baal, the Dreamer from another City, ixu'pi, and someone else collapsed him, and I gave up.

That's right, I gave up. I gave entirely up on the entire thing. I had my doubts about Gloktr's sincerity when he claimed the Acropolis was his workshop already, but with an act of Dreamer-on-Dreamer violence right in the middle of a conflict with the big bad Queen herself proving to me that, despite my best intentions, there was absolutely no way I could claim that I could keep that egg safe with a straight face if we couldn't even fight her without turning on eachother, I gave up. I told Fae-Baal to hold on, Translocated myself up to the Monastery, grabbed Fae-Baal's kid, and took myself back down to the Acropolis to return what was hers.

She was grateful, fighting stopped immediately, and we stood around and conversed at length about the events of the whole evening, I expressed my apologies for the whole charade, and Fae-Baal sung to the egg, it was kinda wholesome. The Kotoke withdrew into their rift, we withdrew to Threshold, the fighting ceased and now I'm Fifth Sphere, thanks to asking Em'et to task me for the whole ordeal. I'm sorry to everyone I involved who's plan didn't work out like we wanted it to, and there were a lot of plans that didn't work out the way we wanted it to.

I'm sorry to the Dreamers that showed for a fight and got a Kotoke-Dreamer conversation, and I'm sorry to the Kotoke. I didn't intend to hold the egg hostage, I just wanted it safe. I would have raised it myself if Fae-Baal didn't want it back, and I would have done my best to ensure it treated Kotoke and Eovoc alike. I had the best intentions for the whole thing, and the overall gist of this is, that doesn't mean a single frigging thing to the actual success of a task. Do your research, feel confident in what you're doing, make sure you've got a talented team at your back and you'll have a much better success chance than stealing an egg and relying on someone to tell the truth.
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