aionlogs | The Door Opens

Entry tags:

The Door Opens

WHO: Emet and open to any Kenoma
WHAT: After being confined, Emet gets out and explores
WHERE: Various locations around Achamoth
WHEN: Three days after this.
WARNINGS: None right now.

After his exit from the dinner party, Emet-Selch appears in his room amidst a billow of black and purple. He can immediately sense a change in the air, as if there are eyes watching him from some undefined place. The presence is the familiar one from the Dining Hall.

He inhales deeply and sighs. "Oh? Have I earned your attention now? How gracious." He takes a few steps to a luxurious cushioned chair and sits. As if in reply, the bolt on the door to the room clicks shut.

I. Days Later, The Door Opens
It becomes clear that the room is meant to be his prison. With no clear exit, fixtures that are impervious to magic or tampering, no assistance from the outside, and no food or water, the thought does arise on whether it is meant to be a grave as well.

Three days on and the lack of nourishment has made him weary. Thinking turns difficult, as does all else. He resigns to sitting in the same cushioned chair with his head resting on the back, eyes closed as he tries to gather his thoughts for a viable solution. There is a book on his lap that he has since stopped reading for lack of clear focus.

It's then that the bolt to the door clicks noisily, indicating that it is unlocked. He drearily peeks at it from across the room.

Emet-Selch stands - steadies himself with a hand to his forehead - and makes for the door. Finding some food and water would need to be the utmost priority.

II. The Library
It seems that the natives take particular 'notice' of his presence. People part in an effort to avoid him as he moves through the crowd on his way to find the Library. Many give the mark on his wrist a disapproving glance. Nevertheless, Emet-Selch can't help but give a small smile of delight. "A true blessing to move about wholly unbothered." He comments. Perhaps the Regent's ire is owed a commendation for this one thing.

He sighs. "Although that does make finding the Library a much more laborious task." So he explores as much as he can in order to find a room filled with books. Perhaps it would have more about this world. Or the meaning behind the sigil he now bore.

III. Magic Lessons
With that excursion out of the way, now comes the matter of looking for a place to work. There must be some open field or facility meant to train individuals - this city has a military, after all. So he sets out to explore the Citadel.

Once he finds a suitable open area, Emet-Selch begins to work. His magic has been strange to him since arriving and this is a good opportunity to work on it with so few people vying for his attention.

He lifts a palm into the air and tries summoning his creation magic to make the smallest of things. Any observers may see him motioning at nothing in the air with his palm, a few glimmers of magic sparking in the air now and again as he tries to conjure. Frustratingly, nothing seems to take form...

IV. Other?
HMU If you'd like another prompt!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Hm, it's almost as if they don't like you," he said, his tone airy, a touch sardonic. He kept walking, at his own leisurely pace. Emet-Selch would or would not take the vague offer, such as it was.

"Many, I suppose. Now that I've had opportunity to see the city below, I thought I would see what I can find about the world at large."

And books were...prized. They didn't have sprawling libraries deep in the bowels beneath Piltover. Silco was educated enough to get by despite that, but it meant he had a larger gap to cover. "Particularly any other locations we might find ourselves in, given that we'll likely have to deal with our new enemies across a battlefield or two."

"Indeed. We must know our terrain as well as we know our city." On that, they can wholeheartedly agree. It was one of the points of contention he had earlier. Escape routes, proper positioning, the terrain - everything could be valuable in giving them a needed advantage.

"It would benefit us all to learn. Luckily, we have been given some means by which to do so." The library, as it were, although there are other places with more guarded information. What could it hold?

Lucky, yes. While Silco certainly was glad to not have drawn the Regent's ire, he didn't necessarily disagree with Emet-Selch's points. It would have been better to have this information earlier. Then again, how could they know who would choose what? If they gave the information to their allies, could they know the same?

"Next time, we may be able to use it to our advantage. Which... I think some of us will need every advantage we can get," he admitted. Without magic, Silco would need to satisfy himself with trickery and tools. He had nothing more than that, after all. That, and a weapon, if he was lucky. He wasn't exactly a quick shot, however, and close range would be...dangerous.

"And what is it you're keen on finding?" his good eye clearly indicated the mark.

"Tactical information is obvious," They did need to capitalize on every single advantage. Even if the other side is fully prepared he would not allow them to take chances. Their goal is much to important.

"Though I am curious how magic works in this world. The magic here is vastly different from what I know."

"The magic here," he said, and his tone said that he was still working to wrap his head around the concept. Silco was from a world where magic existed, of course, but these days, there was little to no access to it. Why everyone was obsessed with it, he could understand. It was power, after all.

"I'm afraid I have little to no knowledge about such things. You'll have to share your findings with the rest of us who haven't...really encountered it before. Are you an expert in these things, where you're from?"

"I should like to think so, yes." He has never been one to downplay his accomplishments before and he would not do so here.

"When I make findings worth sharing, I shall share them. All I have been able to discern for now is that it operates differently than what I am used to. All the rest is, unfortunately, inference."

"Hm, that's good to know. So when we start getting this "magic" we're supposed to start getting... you're the one to ask."

Although his tone said, very clearly, that he didn't really want to ask for "help". When you came from a world where offers of help were likely thinly veiled threats... hesitation was simply the name of the game.

"I'm surprised they haven't had...some method for giving people like you a basic rundown. They have servants for comfort, soldiers for safety, but an Aion like Xishen isn't here to instruct us in basics?"

Silco's voice didn't sound disappointed, but instead, a touch amused by it. After all, that was how the undercity operated. Veneer, and throwing kids into the proverbial river, to see if they sank, or swam.

A fair point. To which Emet-Selch gives a haphazard shrug. "It seems they are fond of throwing us to the wolves and seeing how we handle such situations." If their battle in the Throne Room is anything to go by.

"However, if you would like me to answer questions or provide instructions in the way of magic I will offer any insight I can provide." It's said with the undertone of a sigh. Oh, how he does detest this kind of involvement. "Even if the magic here is unusual, there are certain fundamentals which do not change."

"If I find myself with such power, and incapable of figuring it out on my own, I can assure you, I'll seek you out."

Thankfully, for Emet-Selch, Silco would rather burn himself to the bone than ask for... help. In the Undercity, one would rather starve than ask for food from another, let alone help learning to use this mysterious power they're promised to eventually achieve. Silco, of course, embodied the worse of his people. Shame he's the one in charge.

"I agree with you, regardless. After our...first encounter, it seems that we are expected to either sink, or swim, and grasp our power on our own -- and if we do not..." he shrugged. "We fail." He didn't sound... disappointed. If anything, Silco was invigorated by the promise of it. Power, after all, belonged to those that could grasp it. Not those that would be led there as their position, or connections, or birth demanded.

"Then expecting you to explain the failures as if they were your own." He finishes the thought with a scoff. At least, that is his understanding of what happened after he made his exit.

"Well, actually," he said, with a finger in the air. "Apparently, some of us got accolades for effort over failure," his lip curled. "Very different than where I'm from, where being too slow, or too weak lands one drowned in the River Pilt."

Not that it happened to him, clearly. He was standing here, after all, not a drowned man.

Emet-Selch seems less than impressed. "Oh good, a few compliments in exchange for preventable failure." Although it does demonstrate that the Regent is able to recognize them for something, at least. In a less fussy way he adds, "Although I do admire your optimistic perspective on the matter."

Silco laughed, a snide little sound that left an echo of his almost derisive chuckle echo down the hallway.

"I don't think anyone has ever called me optimistic before," he said, before he shook his head. "Do you think failure is really the sin, here?"

To Silco, it seemed...unusual. Certainly, failure was baked into the bones of Zaun, part of her iron that made her frame -- the pit of the explosion that let the city form, and grow from it. Silco himself had seen failures aplenty, and if he knew one thing, it was that one either failed, and never rose to the surface -- or they did, and became a bigger, meaner monster for it.

"Failure is not a sin. Failure is inevitable - it provides us with the chance to learn so that we may bolster success in the future." Far be it for him to expect perfection. "However, being set up for failure by a being who has the means to prevent such an occurrence I find extremely annoying." Especially when he is on the receiving end.

Although he did find opportunity in that failure - by making a public spectacle over putting 'his allies' at risk, it provided him with the means to endear himself to them. Make it appear as though he will have their best interest in mind.

And he certainly does. To a point.

"Yes, failure is inevitable and useful," he admitted. It's similar enough to his own philosophy. "Although I suppose we differ a bit," he hedged, and looked up at the ceiling, before he shifted that multi-toned gaze at Emet-Selch. Even in the Citadel, in the dimmed light, his black eye had that same eerie glow as in the dark of night on the ship.

"If we know we will always have the Regent to depend on, we may not be strong enough, or fight with as much conviction, if we think they will always be there to pick up all of the pieces. If we know there's a safety net, some may be too cautious, or too bold and over-extend beyond what is feasible," but he paused, because Emet-Selch's criticisms weren't unreasonable. "However, the starvation, lack of clothes, and aggressive guards were a rather difficult hill to climb. I don't necessarily disagree with you."

Edited (start and end with the same phrase ugh) 2022-04-26 02:52 (UTC)

Looking at the Citadel as if its very presence was listening? My, the Regent has these recruits looking over their shoulder already. Not a bad thing, but to envoke the need so soon is 'admirable' in a way.

"We must use all the resources provided without relying on their presence." He agrees in so many words, though the phrasing of his response is carefully constructed. Is this an admission of distrust from his ally? "As I have said: We have a considerable number of resources available to us but they will not win the day. A sound strategy will overcome. A few sound contingency plans could not do us ill, either."

"It certainly wouldn't hurt," he admitted, considering. "We will need Kenoma who can step forward, if that's the case. Who could make a plan -- and a decision, in a pinch. Leaders, among the lot of us."

A dual-toned gaze looked at Emet-Selch, question implicit, as if to ask him: 'do you think you will be the one to make those decisions?'

He didn't voice the thought, of course, but instead a sizing up, watching for the way he reacted. He suspected that Emet-Selch fashioned himself a sort of King -- Emperor -- something of that like. It was the way he walked, showed no shame, and the way he'd refused to bend during the Regent's dinner. Silco suspected that many would take offense to some trying to step forward into such roles, without appropriate support.

Emet-Selch gives a glance of understanding. Though the question is unspoken, a life spent in the Empire - amongst those who would sooner see him dead or dethroned - made grasping such a question very simple. He answers both the statement and the unspoken question in one fell swoop. Without hesitation.

"Indeed." He says. "We will not get far without a plan and those who will see it through."

"Of course not. Even the Regent will need those they can trust to... herd yordles, as it were," he said, his tone mild. Did he trust Emet-Selch to take one of those places, it remained to be seen, but he'd stood up to the Regent, and broke no argument.

He wondered if his walking companion would find humility enough to at least step out of the spotlight the Regent had put on him, or if he would be in opposition, in the end. He wouldn't ask, not here, and not where private conversation was likely to be heard. "And those in such positions will need appropriate support, particularly among our more unsavory types. To avoid dirtying their pretty little manicures."

Edited (hate it when i repeat icons) 2022-05-01 06:23 (UTC)

"Oh?" Not that he is one to worry over dirtying his hands over such matters. Though it is preferable - and often more simple - to let others act in his stead. "Would you be capable of being one such individual?"

Silco laughed, hands clasped behind his back. "Well, let's just say I do anything that is necessary, if I find it will...move us forward."

The curl to his lips said it clearly enough. Certainly, Silco wasn't willing to be a second -- he had his own goals -- but he knew when others were so ready to be in charge, and those were the ones that would fall on their swords, if needed. If not, well. Their goals being achieved was what mattered, right?

"After all, living underground, in the sump? We don't get to wash our hands clean."

"Oh." He says with conversational interest. Emet-Selch gives a flourishing roll of his wrist in the response, partly to force focus on his hand. "Precisely why I wear gloves." In other words, he is not past dirtying his hands either. If it is necessary, anyway.

That, for sure, got a laugh out of Silco. It's sharp, snide, and mean in tone, but surprised as well. "Well, well. You really are full of surprises, aren't you? You didn't seem the type. Most who wear gloves do so out of fear that the filth will... somehow run off onto them."

Emet-Selch gives a light scoff. "I am not so feeble-minded to think that mere cloth makes a difference in that regard." As if the blood on his hands was even worth sullying his conscious over. "Neither am I under the impression that anything can be achieved without effort."

"No, you're quite correct," he paused, in front of the door they were at.

"Ah, here we are, the place I was going," he offered, again with that implication that he wasn't helping Emet-Selch. They just happened to be going in the same direction. Silco was careful, after all. Not out of fear, no. Out of hunger for more power, but he wouldn't clarify for anyone if questioned. Best they think he's a sniveling little rat than a monster lurking under the surface.

"An interesting conversation, thank you for the perspective. Perhaps... well, you'll need another pair of hands, in the future, when you find that dirty work."

(no subject)

lachtara - 2022-05-05 00:19 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only