open | an alenroux press release

[sterngaze]

[A couple weeks after the conclusion of the Exalt Oracle trial, a communion message goes out to all Kenos’s shard-bearers — at a brisk mid-morning hour for Springstar residents, and evening for those night owls in Highstorm. Surely an agreeable enough time for all, yes? The voice will be familiar enough to anyone who listened in on the ambassador talk a Kenos month ago; it’s Liem, mayor of Alenroux Meridian’s resident straight man.]

Greetings, everyone. I have some updates to share regarding efforts to make Alenroux fully and safely inhabitable, which I hope you will be pleased to hear.

Last month, prior to the events surrounding the Oracle, a contingent of Springstar military overseen by several shard-bearers launched a multi-pronged expedition north into Alenroux’s forests, in order to locate the source of the monsters that continue to infest the woods. While I’m sure those of you who frequent Alenroux will have noticed that the flow of especially dangerous, augmented creatures mostly died off after the dismantling of Aetós’s underground facility, we have not been able to expunge the general monster population from the forest despite ongoing efforts, so this was an attempt to remedy that.

These expeditionary forces succeeded in locating three separate cornerstones and portals that were previously disgorging monsters. At this time we think it likely that they were connected to the timestream in some way that allowed creatures from other worlds to come through, but the portals themselves proved extremely hazardous to life attempting to breach from this side. All three have now been destroyed, and while we cannot say with certainty that there are no further portals out there, we are optimistic that this will allow the danger to those living in Alenroux to be further reduced by the joint forces still stationed there.

If you have further questions, you may direct them to me, or to Hayame, Akua Sahelian, Keitaro Miura, Gray, Byleth Eisner, Link, Kim Dokja, or Dee. [He means D.]

Comments

[wolof]

Mm, I would suggest, dear heart, that we do not become too cocky with our... providence.

Certainty is a path towards destruction.

[ It may not be that this world follows her rules, but Akua still sees this world through such a lens. ]

[redsoil]

Oh, Akua! There is no "wrong" in what I decree, for if I decree it — it is so!

[ His boasts are made on the back of his divinity, rather than mortal fragility and fluidity. There is not an inch of him that would say something he did not wholly believe in, with the audacity and power of someone who is flexible, but still woven into parameters. Discord, war, calamity, and so on. ]

This is not an opinion to be disputed, it is the result of proven fact and effort. I will be cautious for you, though — your counsel and knowledge of rhetoric is, doubtless, arresting.

[wolof]

Those who experience Providence certainly have such certainty.

[ She says it, and there's a mix of both pride and jealousy in there, for those winds of Providence were so... fickle, in her experience. Then again... she knew whom they were guided by, just as she should — would her mind provided, given the vision she had seen in the portal, disjointed though it was — guide the inexorable tug of Calamity. ]

I only caution for the forces of one or another can turn quickly enough. Zenith captured the first, did they not? I do not doubt that they will inevitably begin to clutch tighter, and reach for the next with renewed efforts.

We are only to a tie now, after all. The deck will need to continue to be stacked.

PRIVATE.

[redsoil]

Well, I do have to appear a certain way to the public — my personal beliefs are more in line with what you imagine. To that end, I want to meet with you soon.

[ Sure, they could be cautious. Or, they could be proactive and prepared for the inevitable. This is a war, and the war is going to escalate soon. He feels it in his gut. Be it by Oracle or the months in-between, he wants to be ready to accomplish something grand. Something violent and sudden and jaw-droppingly definitive. Which means he needs Akua, who is of the same mind.

She once built a grand weapon. He wants to do it again. ]

I have a location in mind for preparations. Liem and I have locked it down, so I will need to loop him in.

PRIVATE.

[wolof]

Do you think he will find our plans... agreeable?

[ She asks, cautious. Though she had worked with Liem, she sensed that he had some measure of honor, or perhaps that was merely projection. With Akua, it was so hard to tell. ]

If so, I think he has the wherewithal to not stumble too much into the... dangerous parts of where we decide to establish our working.

[ And then her voice turns... excitable. Surging with lust, but not for any person. For power. For doing something nobody expected, and shaking up the very establishment. Changing it, perhaps for the better. ]

We'll create something so grand, Set. Once I blotted out the very sun with Night. Perhaps I shall decide to do the opposite.

[redsoil]

Liem has a perspective I value.

[ High praise, from a god! There is an innate confidence within him, despite the malignancy of self-doubt, that speaks to his acknowledgement of Liem's orderliness. However, he does believe that the man would agree to participate if given the room to ask essential questions and provide input of his own. ]

He is not the manner of who allows 'goodness' and 'righteousness' to get in the way of doing what is necessary.

[ Which makes him a little more kindred to Set and Akua, than someone like Hayame, or Claude. ]

Akua, I want to scar Highstorm. I want to unseat their long-standing confidence and reveal to them how silly it was to become content with sedation and tranquility. To that end, we will have three potential targets: Lady Yima, herself, or her seat of power, or her Tree. The beauty of this is that all three are in the same spot. We have to do a lot of preparation, though.

[wolof]

Good.

[ Whether that to Liem or the statement, it doesn't matter. It is both. As long as Set trusts Liem not to get in the way of her weapon, of destruction, she would allow them to see the majesty of her working. To see the great and terrible work that they will create. To see how they can destroy and rend.

To see that Springstar will not just lay over, and allow Zenith to control their fates. ]

I want to see them boil under our power. Let them writhe and cry out in terror as our power streaks through the sky for them. They may not be taken wholly — but I do intend to make Lady Yima fear for her life for the first time in a long age.

[ The smile that flickers through communion is over-confident. ]

I suppose it will not be my first time, threatening beings of her caliber.

[ Immortals. Gods. They can all be threatened. ]

[redsoil]

[ In the meanwhile, he does chat with Liem about their ideas. At the very least, Liem is willing to turn his eyes away from Set and Akua's plotting; he's good for it, and Set basks in the warmth that fills him with the knowledge that the terror he's plotting might be ( at the very least ) accepted. Maybe not 'acceptable', but accepted. ]

I thought you might be up to the challenge. Should we need to adjust our design as we go, let it be so. We'll begin staging at the temple in the north of the Beyond, so mind your Discord. [ A telling pause, and he then smiles at Akua. Winsome. Terribly predatory. ] It is my sister's temple, you know. Isis. Her iconography is on the wall, in tatters. Not her as I know her of my world, but it is her.

[wolof]

Your sister is here? Or was, perhaps? Long enough to leave the ruins of a temple in the Beyond?

[ She does not fear her discord, of course. Akua has no trouble finding those that would hold her hand — or do something else — and allow her to siphon it away.

Hell, she'd recently allowed it to arc higher, if just to torture Dark with it. Not that anyone knows she had done that yet. ]

Is it fitting, to use her temple? Tell me of her.