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

[aestrix]

Well, first, actually: Invisible Wall, The Sequel.

"Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air," says a voice, from everywhere.

And now there is an invisible wall behind her, too. Isn't that charming. You'd think they'd mix it up a bit, maybe get rid of parts of the walkway or something. But nope, more invisible walls.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx rolls her eyes, holsters her Zapper, and pulls out Fishbones. The gaping steel teeth of her rocket launcher grin menacingly at the general area as she levels it at Annoying Invisible Wall Number Two.

"Nope!"

SKOOM.

(That is the sound of a five-meter-globe-containment antimatter charge impacting against an invisible wall and detonating. It would be very pretty if it wasn't so terrifying.)

[aestrix]

Pop goes Annoying Invisible Wall Number Two.

The voice from nowhere has nothing to say to that, apparently.

Jinx now has free reign to continue down the walkway.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx grins and beats feet down the catwalk, Fishbones' fin swaying back and forth on her shoulder as she reloads in motion.

[aestrix]

There are no more invisible walls! Apparently the people in charge have gotten sick of her blowing up their nice things. Or something.

Or possibly they are planning something else.

Does Jinx have the ability to, say, sense a tiny dart filled with really awful poison flying towards her person right now?

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx is not quite that good at intercepting tiny little darts she doesn't expect.

But she grew up in Zaun. Zaun doesn't fuck around, regarding poisons. And she's fought against Twitch and Singed and all the rest of them on the Rift.

... That doesn't really make her any less in pain, but it does mean that she's still alive and moving despite the toxin in her blood.

"Fuck!"

She shakes her head and pulls the dart from her skin with a hiss.

"You guys fight dirty."

She smiles through the pain.

"I can respect that."

She tugs a grenade from her belt, and with a complicated-looking gesture she has a syringe in her hand, which she stabs into her shoulder- and then she's up and moving again, keying her little scanner with one hand while she scatters more stun grenades with the other.

C'mon, c'mon, these assholes have got to be coordinating somehow. Gimme a network!

[aestrix]

They do have a network, actually! A lot of networks. And their defenses are no match for the powers of SCIENCE.

"- target has shrugged off the poison. Likely alchemist counter. Palini, give me a list of counters for it and where they could come from."

"Yes, ma'am," says another voice on the network.

"I don't think that was pre-prepared, ma'am. She was too taken by surprise."

"... Agreed. Arcanist, then, one of Inavet's?"

"Who else could it be?"

"We could have another rogue, this doesn't seem Inavet's style. I'd expect it to be less... Pointless and brute forced. And our little traitor's not one for chaos. This is someone else."

"Tervarys, alert squad Phi. I want this woman dead or wishing she was."

"Ma'am!"

"We might have tipped her hand. And it's obvious she has inside information, if she knew about the arcanist tracking device. Garenda! Find me the traitors."

"Ma'am."

Well isn't that interesting.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx could talk back, if she wanted to, but this is far too entertaining. She pops in her earpiece and keeps moving, a little more slowly now - it's a good thing these assholes jumped to conclusions, since she only has so much body to convert over to scrubbing toxins from her system.

She keys her ride on her own secure channel; she wants it dematerialized and ready to pick her up at a moment's notice if she needs to GTFO.

... Hmm. Wonder if these people have any secure information anywhere on what the giant tree does?

Let's find out.

[aestrix]

They do, actually!

The giant tree does the following:

Regulate the temperature of the planet

Monitor various ecosystems nearby and keep them stable

Prevent any natural disasters from occurring

Stabilize the sun so that it will never, at any point in the future, blow up

All in conjunction with the other giant trees scattered across the world. One being blown up would not take down the magic, but a majority of them being taken down would likely cause a lot of natural disasters. And probably a few collapsed ecosystems. And a blown up sun, eventually.

So, essentially, if she would like to cause a lot of havoc to Facet, this is the place to blow up.

[itstandsforjinx]

BLOW UP THE SUN.

Jinx lets out a little squeal of glee at that entry.

Okay, how does it work? What does she need to blow up?

(She pings her vicinity for this Squad Phi, just in case.)

[aestrix]

It works by... Very complicated magic. Very, very complicated magic. The water below her seems to be for feeding the tree so it can do its complicated magic stuff. The best way to kill it is... Actually, right below her. Do something to corrupt the sawdust water that's feeding the plant, or find a way to keep the tree from processing its food. It'll die in weeks if that happens and isn't fixed.

(Squad Phi isn't near her yet.)

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx puffs air out of the side of her mouth.

Okay, blowing up the sun is cool, but weeks? She does not have that long.

Okay, where are asses in her earpiece? Better yet, where are their bosses?

[aestrix]

Asses in her earpiece seem to be mostly in a command center in the center of the giant tree.

Their bosses are in various places in the country, but a good number of them are in a building in this city.

[itstandsforjinx]

Okay, let's cut the crap: Where's the boss's boss's boss's boss's boss? Who's the person most responsible for the ridiculous state of order and cleanliness everywhere?

... Wait, wait, wait. Better idea. Get that, sure, but where's the local prison?

Also, ETA on Phi or whoever?

[aestrix]

Their boss's boss's boss's boss's boss... Seems to be a group of people, actually. Several tens of thousands of years old, all of them. The person most responsible for the ridiculous state of order and cleanliness seems to be a man named Hiarnas, who has organized most of the empire, or pushed for his companions to organize it.

The closest official prison is a correctional facility several hundred miles away.

The closest, most classified, secret prison, is... Actually several hundred meters below the giant tree Jinx is currently in. Most people don't even know it's there.

Phi will be here in about three minutes.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx looks around.

There is a metal catwalk. She is carrying grenades. She has a cutting laser. She has three minutes to build the biggest gun she's ever used.

She grins.

It's time for SCIENCE.

[aestrix]

SCIENCE!

... The assholes are alarmed by SCIENCE. They opt to A. Trap her in a tiny spot with several invisible walls, and then B. Immediately shoot her with as many poison darts as they have available at the moment. That is, twelve. They're getting more, but they have twelve right here, in shooting range.

[itstandsforjinx]

Pink light streams from Jinx's eyes; when the warning bleep of her scanner sounds, she smiles - then, with a single sweep of Pow-Pow and a torrent of destroying light, both the walls and the darts are gone.

!The work must not be interrupted!

[aestrix]

Well now they are kind of frightened.

They drop the walkway out from under her and send her and her work into the sawdust water below. Or, well, they try to, anyway.

[itstandsforjinx]

The work is self-supporting, by now. What, did they expect that she would build a gun the size of a car on a tiny little catwalk?

Jinx moves back and forth along the length of the cannon, tightening each bolt by hand, hammering in nails with her bare fists, the light inside her calling the form of the thing out into the world with the work of her body. It is almost complete, already.

[aestrix]

Now they are very frightened.

Phi isn't nearly close enough.

They... Do not have the resources to stop her. They try a few more invisible walls, but they're out of darts and out of options.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx has a cannon.

Jinx has targets.

Wall over to my right and up, please go away. There are things behind you I want to shoot.

If there was ever a gun that could miss the broad side of a barn, it would be this one. But it doesn't take much precision to hit a wall.

[aestrix]

Blam! There goes the wall.

The assholes find this alarming! They are alarmed. Watch how they call in more than just Phi.

[itstandsforjinx]

Ooh! What are they calling in now?~

Jinx puts a shell into the perimeter of the faraway prison. Let's see how she can make them dance!

[aestrix]

They are calling in some people that are not part of squads, but are apparently some of the best arcanists in the world. Some of these people are far away, but a few of them are very close.

Also, now people that are not directly involved are very alarmed.