[Open] The Mark of the Herald

[thewatchers]

Mark of the Herald Part I
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Despite certain disruptive events and ominous visions in the preceding month, August is seemingly still free of any problems.

That’s quick to change, however. Starting from the third of the month, strange, circular marks begin to appear on human students around the school - and, indeed, humans around the world. Those affected begin to feel incurably drowsy, something that no magical or mundane solution can seem to cure or relieve; eventually, they’ll fall asleep entirely, whether they want to or not, and enter a state of magical stasis. Not even nonhumans are immune, though whether they’re marked seems to be much more erratic.

Those who remain awake or are otherwise spared by the mark are free to do as they wish - the Academy won’t ask them to do more than keep themselves safe. But where each marked person falls in slumber, a portal will form; a strange tear in reality, offering glimpses of a surreal, nightmarish plane that differs vastly from individual to individual. One thing is certain; the cause of a victim’s seemingly endless sleep and these portals are linked somehow, and the only way to find out exactly how is to go through...and the only ones capable of doing so are those who are still awake.

This log can be used as a catch-all for event-related threads. The information for this event is here.

Comments

[heromedal]

It's certainly the wisest choice, to back away. Courageous warriors see the enormous arc and lax left side and try to move there to counter, but Ekkehardt must have seen the way the move ends- with Rex on one knee, with all that wild, uncontrollable force turned into a stab at the lefthand blindspot. It'd be right in the heart of someone trying to slip around to the supposed weakspot. He's caught out a few of the imitation Ekkehardt's he's been facing with that one.

"There isn't anything else." Not just there isn't anything else to spend his time on. There simply isn't anything else to life than fighting. It's all he can remember anymore. He's stopped trying to remember what it was like before being here, in this abyss where anything that was not a painful battle died. In the same way that in this dream Rex can't comprehend a world outside, he can't understand Ekkehardt's meaning here either. It's a different tact taken than the others, which at least slows Rex down. Makes him think about his next move a little more. Get up on his feet instead of moving into the next terrifying move taught to him by perhaps the fiercest warrior who ever lived. "All of you... always trying to fool me with your words. It will never be enough. You'll never trick me into..."

It takes a moment for him to even conclude what the trick might be, before latching onto Ekkehardt's own words.

"Stopping fighting. Everyone always wants to defang me. Because they want to sabotage me, use me, destroy me... It doesn't matter. The only way to receive my teeth is a bite." The next attack is another of those unusual unbalanced ones that Helen had to use. Laying his sword across his shoulder and essentially falling making it into an intensely heavy downward swing, as all his body weight is added to the sword, spraying stone from the impact. Only catching himself at the last moment. "No one will accept a rabid dog!"

[spelleton]

The only way to receive his teeth is a bite, is it? Well, he doesn't fear pain or death, even in a dream. He's been tormented at the hands of worse.

He doesn't dodge this oncoming strike, though he knows Rex's strength is likely comparative to his mother's. He doesn't so much as flinch; he just watches Rex, his gaze level and calm, as the blow goes straight through him, inexorable, unstoppable.

You're not an animal to be put down, he almost says, but he likes dogs. To kill them, even though they suffer, is still its own kind of tragedy.

[heromedal]

The acceptance of the incoming blow triggers something in Rex. He tries to stop it, slamming his left foot down from its limp position attempting to haul back his upper body and stop the swing. He proves that he is not as strong as Helen, who even with one arm could have diverted the swing or stopped it dead. Rex may have well been trying to stop a freight train with his bare hands. If he had his precious medal, perhaps- but in the dream, it's far away and forgotten.

As such he cleaves Ekkhardt clean in two, his body bent like a bow as he attempts to hold back his own attack. But the Arany Style was made to be unstoppable.

Immediately after his blade becomes lodged three feet into the ground, Rex releases his grip on the handle. The blackened tar that it's covered in never hinders his grip, but it does leave a pair of handprints on his face.

[spelleton]

It doesn't hurt as much as he thought, but then, he's never let himself be cleaved in two in reality, so he doesn't have much of a reference frame for how it might feel in a dream.

He's not exactly sure how it goes from here, either. Should he collapse, or sit down, or something? It feels unnatural, but everything about this is unnatural.

"Well, as you can see, not everyone feels hostility towards you." It seems a strange thing to say after you've been practically cut in half, but it is what it is.

[heromedal]

Rex releases some Bulgarian profanity when he hears Ekkehardt's voice, but it's followed by Hungarian. Bulgarian is the language of Rex's brain. Hungarian, the language his mother spoke to him in, sung to him in, raised him in, that's the language of his heart. Ekkehardt likely has no idea that Rex is exclaiming 'you're alive!' but it continues to come out as a babble of Hungarian, gesticulating as he tries to work out what just happened.

[spelleton]

Ekkehardt doesn't have much of a grasp on Hungarian, but the shock is clear enough. He just sighs, stepping away from the blade, willing his body to piece itself back together the way he'd do it in life. Bones set back into place, bandages secure them, and apart from his sliced-apart clothing he might as well be intact.

"I suppose you're more than old enough to know now, so I might as well show you," he says, after a moment. He doesn't even have to think to dispel his glamour; it crumbles away completely, to reveal nothing but bone beneath. He rubs at his shoulder where he was hit.

"Being dead has its benefits, especially around edged weapons. So you did me no harm."