exsiliumlogs | [open] welcome to the masquerade

Entry tags:

[open] welcome to the masquerade

Date & Time: Friday the 7th, 4pm to midnight.
Location: Palace of Versailles, France, 1772.
Characters: anyone! Even characters not yet accepted as of when this log goes up. 8)
Summary: It's just some fancy masquerade dance with spiked punch.
Warnings: here be pictures, slow connections beware.

Welcome to Versailles.

The decorations are arranged, the food is prepared and laid out, the music has been rehearsed, and... most people have their costumes and masks ready. At precisely 1600, the Transporter machine activates, and a full room of people and all of their decorations, food, musical instruments, and costumes are sent back to 1772. The Palace of Versailles is in the height of its splendor, the weather is perfect and cloudless, and the gardens are in full bloom for the spring.

➣ Explore the Palace

Holy shit look at this, you have the chance to get your grubby little fingers all over history before it even becomes properly history. Do you know how many famous butts sat in all these plush velvet chairs? Or are going to sit in these plush velvet chairs? And they were all probably just talking the hell out of French, too. Wow. Go invade some bedrooms, poke your head into the kitchens (but no more than that, or territorial cooking elves might take offense), just. Touch everything. Everything. Just know that where ever you are, there's no escaping that beautiful music your fellow Transports are inflicting on you, that shit's just echoing all over the place tonight.

➣ Admire the Gardens

Jeez look at this, these people just had way too much money. But you get to benefit from it! You can basically just get yourself lost for hours here, so try not to starve or anything. Meet all the statues, go streaking through the fountains (please don't, no one wants to see that), get lost and desperately burst through cute little trees in your increasingly frantic attempts to find the exit. There's all sorts of fun you can have!

Just don't wander too close to the edge of the grounds, or you'll encounter (run into?) the invisible forcefield set up to keep wandering guests from utterly ruining history. That's probably a good way to get yourself a bloody nose.

➣ Enjoy the Banquet

There's tables and tables of this finger-licking good finery here, and it's all for you. And can you believe how fancy it is? Oh my god, those sausages have adorable little spears through them. And those spoons gently cradling their cheesy goodness? Yeah. They're made of crackers. And don't even get me started on these desserts. This is amazing. You've never eaten this good. And naturally, each drink (some of which are spiked, you're welcome) has adorable little frozen flowers in the ice cubes. Who even comes up with this stuff? Elves, that's who.

[[ HEY LOOK: AN OVERFLOW LOG! You're not required to move your threads there, but you're welcome to, in case this entry is getting difficult to load for anyone! ]]

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Sure is nice out there, isn't it?

Then this happens.

A few beats later a fluffy-haired man in eclectic attire runs by, trailing the loudest psychic energy anyone's ever seen. Heard. Something.

Such pain!

Blue's body went rigid, then began to writhe, clutching his head, pulling the amplifiers off, but...but it wasn't enough to quell the intensity of that sound. That sound!

His cry was audible outwardly and inwardly, his mind reeling, as he dropped to his knees, doubling over.

It's a terrifying sound, like a hundred people shrieking over and over, a terrible snapping and thumping and pounding behind it.

The Doctor collapses to his knees not far away, hands buried in his hair, working desperately to keep this energy down, cloak the psychic noise, bring his mind back to the here and now. He cannot lose control--time has been altered and he has to... he has to....

He slumps to the ground, the energy slowly wicking back into his mind, the noise dying down. A low-level buzz persists, though. Staticky. Somehow wrong.

Why...?

Blue's thoughts, unchecked and disoriented, left him freely. A blue glow haloed him, some impulse to defend himself from such a horrible, damaging attack.

What is this? This agony...

The noise is gone, now, having receded neatly into the Doctor's mind. It leaves a lingering impression, though. A thought. A word or a name.

Zagreus.

The Doctor stirs, groggily sitting up.

Zagreus...

The word just left him more disoriented than before, his hand dragging down his his face, eyes bleary. His power flickers, strained as his breath as he tries to push himself back up, eyes squeezed shut.

Danger...here...

His mind flickered to the people – the people he knew, the unknown minds and moods drifting from the palace. It made his skin grow cold. If there was danger here...

The Doctor doesn't look much better as he hauls himself to his feet and stumbles toward Blue.

"Are you all right?" He looks about to see if anyone else is affected. "How long was I here? Did I... do anything? To you?"

Blue's head lifts at the sound, so loud and drumming to him in that moment. His eyes opened, expression scrunching up with strain, trying to separate the physical from what was buzzing in his head. Curling his fingers in the dirt, he feels them pressed against one of the amplifiers – a bit more stability and sense of bearing.

"Someone," he breathed, wincing. "Something's...powerful force...There's danger..."

"Are you hurt?" He's trying to hold the boy and himself upright at the same time and not doing terribly well at it. The Doctor's mind has snapped a shield around itself, silencing that awful noise and power, but it's still there, roiling and pounding and shrieking even though it can't be heard.

"Tell me what you heard," the Doctor wheezes.

NO–!

"No!"

A great pulse of energy surges from within, bubbling out and forcibly throwing the man away. For how close – how loud the sound remained, Blue's instincts drive it all from him to protect himself. He had felt the concern and disorientation of the other as palpably as his own, yet it did not register amid his lingering confusion.

Distance, though, clears his head faster than any comforting gesture that stranger has to offer; the glow dims again and he seems to shrink, though his elbows had lifted out of the dirt and he had better sat upon his knees, recollecting himself, finding his bearings.

Only then does he wholly see that stranger – wide, alarmed eyes locked on him, trying to discern this horrible sensation emanating from him.

It was difficult to miss such a bloodcurdling scream, though it had regrettably taken Samus a few moments to reach its location from where she was, even running as fast as her armored boots would take her. She could only hope she wouldn't be too late; she'd idly been wishing for a little excitement on patrol, but never at the expense of someone else.

Those boots came skidding to a halt, just in time to witness Blue's outburst. Samus could only assume that he was the hostile, and treated him as such. Her arm cannon locked onto him, glowing vibrantly and ready to fire.

"Stand down!"

The psychic blast sends the Doctor sprawling, and when Blue comes back to his senses he'll see the Time Lord flat on his back and wheezing for breath. He's trying so hard to keep that energy locked away and is, for the most part, succeeding. For now.

He looks blearily at the newcomer.

Blue's barely has time to frame this person, this...carrier of that terrible notion before an external will imposes itself upon him, honed in on him – a supposed source of threat. His chest tightens, all too familiar with this danger, and his glow lit anew as he braced himself, his breath caught and lost.

Escape, he thinks right away. Instinct. Humans have come to destroy him again. But that's...No. No...

"Don't," he utters, his body hunched forward, shrinking. This isn't what he wants. "Please."

I won't harm anyone, he said – the thought passed to all near him. Pleading.

Samus isn't unfamiliar with the notion of telepaths, though incredibly uncommon in her experiences; certainly enough to cause her to balk as thoughts other than her own make themselves known in her head. There's a sincerity in his expression she believes, though she's too hardened to lower her arm right away.

The lights dim from her cannon, but she keeps it aimed on him as she carefully sidesteps towards the Doctor, feeling the need to secure his safety first, act as a shield. Only after she's in front of him does she slowly lower her cannon.

"Can you stand?" She extends a hand to the Doctor, all while not turning her back to nor tearing her eyes off of Blue.

"I'm all right," the Doctor wheezes, hauling himself to his feet. "He didn't harm me... rather the contrary, I think he's... more the victim...."

The Doctor certainly doesn't look like any kind of an aggressor as he sways visibly, one hand to his head.

"There was... a psionic bleedthrough. I'm afraid he panicked, is all. But I need to know what he heard." He looks past Samus to focus on Blue as best he can. "Can you tell me?"

Blue's head lifts slow, his eyes locking on the new aggressor – Samus, the sharp-minded warrior. She is the greater danger then, the buzzing the Doctor emanated having ebbed to a level no longer painful to his mind. Yet its persistence...

Psionic bleedthrough? His attentions snap back to the Doctor at that, his brow pinching with a desperate need to understand. But before he can even ask, he's questioned in turn.

"Zagreus," he said, hearing it echo in his mind once more. And in saying it, his expression began to harden. "You did this to me...? The wailing, the screams..."

Despite quick explanation, Samus tenses and remains steadfast in front of the Doctor, unwilling to move out of the way.

Not once does it cross her mind that this is an unstable situation she probably shouldn't be standing in the middle of. Selflessness is far too ingrained in her, despite the possible threat standing before them.

As soon as the boy utters that name the Doctor goes very pale.

"Oh, no," he breathes. Then he pulls himself together, but not well enough to stop himself blithering, his gaze flicking panickedly between boy and armoured soldier. "Listen--listen--listen, I swear I did not do this deliberately. I've been... invaded, but I thought I had it under control when I was brought back here--I hadn't heard a peep from it until I felt that change in time, that... lurching in the temporal flow, somewhere in there...." He gestures at the palace. "Please, you have to believe me, I honestly mean no harm, and that change in spacetime is much more pressing...."

"Invaded." Blue repeats this as though it's a word he hardly understands. What he'd just experienced wasn't wholly understood yet, and the explanation was hard to fathom. What he could glean from the Doctor was only more of the same – that startling buzz that caused him to recoil from his move to stand between him and the armed woman.

His hardened, conflicted stare then lifted to her – a mind clear of that horrible sensation. If she knew what he was speaking of...

She wished she did. Samus was observant none the less, assessing and working off of what little she had just learned.

She was unaware the extent of either men's abilities (sans blue glowy powers and telepathy) but could assume one or the other (or both) were at least sensitive to the effects of time travel. However, they had been sent back in time for this party with the express caution taken of not disturbing anything. Were these two men simply overly sensitive to the time jump itself, or had something gone wrong, something unaccounted for?

The prospect of an invader didn't settle well with her either, suggesting that may have been the thing unaccounted for; maybe this Zagreus. Immediate images to come to her mind were a bit more... physical and parasitic in nature. Finally, Samus tore her gaze away from Blue to the man behind her, scrutinizing him.

"Are you compromised? What is this invader?"

More importantly, was it contagious and would she have to shoot it out of him...

The Doctor pushes his hands through his hair. "Zagreus is... it's--it's an entity of anti-time that I ended up absorbing when I tried to contain explosion of anti-time.... it's all the realities that never were, that were obliterated from our time. But energy has to go somewhere, it can't simply cease to be, and in this case all of these realities became anti-time, the opposite of our space-time, a thing with no causality." Now he rubs a hand down his face. "Oh, I know this explanation doesn't make any sense--it scarcely makes sense to me and I was there. It--it sits inside my head, it... no, not that. But it does reside solely in my mind. It can't escape."

It is, perhaps, a fair explanation – honest, earnest. But Blue is still rattled by that horrible onslaught. His head ducks again, his own hands going to his temples, pressing, trying to squeeze it out. The buzzing, still...

All that screaming. He said obliterated, and Blue's mind returns to Ganymede. It's almost as palpable as that day, some three hundred years ago.

It can't escape, the man says. Blue's mind takes it in different context. He has to. Has to get away. These humans– that human girl–

It's no good. It's no good – his focus is gone.

Wincing once more, the glow intensifies to a quick flash, then is suddenly gone – as is Blue as its source.

What... Her mind reels with his rattled explanation, but not for very long as her focus is sharply drawn back onto Blue. Samus braces for an attack, arm protectively in front of the Doctor and expects the worst.

"..." Instead, that guy totally just blinked out of existence. Her visor flashes as it goes through another volley of scans, showing no signs of the mysterious and apparently pained lad.

Finally, her posture eases, emitting something of a sigh under the helmet.

"If it can't escape then what the hell was that all about?" A very strong influence, then, she wonders?

The Doctor breathes a sigh as well, wobbling as he does so.

"I think he was... overwhelmed by its presence."

Whoa there. She draws up on her feet, looking for a comfortable open chair to gently lead him too. Over there, that one would do.

"Is this the first time this has happened?"

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shoesfitperfectly - 2012-12-10 21:10 (UTC) - Expand

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raisedbybirds - 2012-12-14 10:21 (UTC) - Expand

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[open] welcome to the masquerade

I'm so sorry...

NO NEVER BE SORRY EVER

WELL, THEN! XD

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whoops misfire

It's all right, I moved my tag.

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