Tyranny, meet anarchy

[aestrix]

The city of Eantasyl is fortunate in its placement, and is considered old for even an elven city. The streets are some kind of shimmery stone, the buildings neatly arranged and well maintained. It's pleasant, and generally considered a nice place for the rich to retire. There's a noticeable lack of greenery and foliage on the streets themselves - the place is kept very dense, and it's can be guessed that its citizens thought they had enough foliage already. It sits at the base of one of the very first world trees. One could be forgiven for missing the city for the tree - it's several thousand feet tall, and its branches bring shade to more than half of Eantasyl. They do not need gardens. They have enough to spare, up in the sky.

(The leaves are a pain to rake.)

Despite many of its flaws (and there are many) the Sunrise Empire isn't actually a horrible place to live. This place especially. Just steer clear of the government, keep your head down, don't join any rebellions, and don't break any laws, and you'll be fine. Probably. Unless there are dangerous criminals running around, causing trouble.

But that hardly ever happens. The Ministry has it all under control.

Comments

[poll_the_stars]

Inavet opens her mouth. Then she closes it. She looks down at the coffins.

"... No, likely not," she says, slowly. "Um. Are you trying to save the immortality victims?"

[itstandsforjinx]

"Immortality victims?"

Jinx frowns, then shrugs.

"I am trying to free whoever's in these coffins."

[poll_the_stars]

... Okay. That's not the horrible destruction she thought there would be if Jinx was unleashed, large amounts of this place destroyed excepted because it's okay to blow up traps.

"In order to get their leaders a version of immortality, they sacrifice several people to a living hell for the rest of their immortal lives. If they're keeping living arcanist prisoners in coffin-like things underneath a ton of protections and... what looks like the remains of traps... instead of literal ones, where the person inside is dead, that's probably them."

[aestrix]

"What, really? Holy fuck," says Kuvair.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx shrugs, as if this confirms what she had suspected all along.

"Yep, that sounds about right. If you wanna help, there are some tapes in my green box you should watch so you can pick up my air-transmuter and get to work on a second coffin." She points in the direction of Viridesence's mad science transport device.

"... Wait, on second thought - Kuvair, could you grab the tapes for her? You know where they are, it'll be faster that way. Also, I don't have to worry about her accidentally messing up my box. That would be bad."

[aestrix]

"Sure thing, fetching tapes."

Off he goes, to fetch the tapes.

[poll_the_stars]

"What exactly do the tapes do?" asks Inavet cautiously.

[itstandsforjinx]

"See the awesome laser gatling cannon? You too can build your own awesome laser gatling cannon. The tapes show you how to make one and how to handle it so it doesn't explode or try to eat your face, along with a whole bunch of other cool stuff. Incidentally, thanks for the forum connection."

Jinx idly taps in a response to a thread about murder parties on her little scanner.

[poll_the_stars]

"... You're welcome."

(She checks what exactly was said, and a part of her mind winces. Murder parties.)

"What are the after effects of being able to build my own awesome laser gatling cannon? Who was the person who gave you the tapes?"

(Who the fuck was stupid enough to give this crazy person more ammunition...?)

[itstandsforjinx]

"Some green guy, I don't remember his name. Don't let people touch the awesome stuff you made, they'll wreck it. Kuvair's in my gang though, so I figure he knows better."

Hum de hum. Man, this floor is taking forever to melt through.

[poll_the_stars]

Forgive her if she doesn't trust something from 'some green guy.'

"Does he have a forum account?"

[itstandsforjinx]

"Yep. Lemme see if I can find the private message."

Scroll scroll scroll burn burn burn.

[poll_the_stars]

Inavet waits.

[aestrix]

Kuvair returns!

"Tapes," he says. "I have them."

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx takes the offered tapes and slots them into her scanner.

"Ah, here we go."

She pulls up a PM conversation. It features her and an offer from Viridescence.

[poll_the_stars]

"Viridescence is the one from the World of Darkness that attempted the mental attack that Esthfora prevented," says Inavet, carefully. "I don't think I would like to accept anything from him. No offense to you."

Internally, where no one can hear her, there is screaming.

[itstandsforjinx]

"Ummm... Too late? He's the guy who sent me the awesome stuff, it doesn't seem evil so far?"

Hisssssss goes the floor.

(Inavet may have noticed that there is a post in the PM conversation where Jinx explicitly waives any mental warding provided by Esthfora.)

[poll_the_stars]

"Yes, I gather that you accepted. I believe I'd like to decline, though, to watch the tapes."

(She has noticed, yes. That is... disturbing...)

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx shrugs. "Alright then."

She prods the edge of the glowing crater in the floor with one heavy leather boot.

"...This is taking forever."

[poll_the_stars]

"It looks just about done," observes Inavet.

She has a bad feeling about all of this.

She looks at Kuvair.

"Why'd you defect?" she asks.

[aestrix]

"Because they were jackasses who were oppressing people? And Jinx asked."

[poll_the_stars]

"Mm. You were part of an enforcer squad." She eyes his uniform. "One of the higher up ones. I wouldn't have expected you to defect because someone asked you to."

[aestrix]

"You defected, didn't you?"

[poll_the_stars]

"... Yes," she admits, cautiously. But you are likely being mind controlled...

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx seems to have stopped paying attention. She's busy using her air-transmuter to clear the hole of the remaining red-hot debris.