Quote:10 → 0/10 S:1

Start of New Day (10)
(1d20+0: [16]+0 = 16) 
Success

10 → 0/10 S:2

Quote:Use OP to cradle Lily (10)
(1d20+0: [3]+0 = 3) 
Fail

10 → 1/10 S:2

Reach for the OP again (10)
(1d20+0: [19]+0 = 19) 
Success

10 → 1/10 S:3

In an effort to restore stability following weeks of unrest, the government has announced a special presidential election will be held within the next three months. The decision comes amid mounting pressure from lawmakers and the public, many of whom have called the current administration’s legitimacy into question following the assassination of President Fredrick James Dawson and Vice President Col. Track Palin.

The special election will see the incumbent, the former Speak of the House who assumed the presidency in the wake of the crisis, face off against political outsider Nolan Trace. Trace, a former military strategist turned independent statesman, has rapidly gained public support, with the latest polls indicating he holds a commanding lead over the current administration.
A figure of resilience and reform, Trace has positioned himself as the leader who can unite a fractured nation. His platform emphasizes government accountability, national security, and economic recovery in the wake of the widespread riots that erupted after the transition of power. In a recent statement, Trace addressed the public directly:

“The American people deserve leadership they can trust. The past month has been marked by fear and uncertainty, but this election is our chance to take back control and forge a new path forward. We will not let chaos define us—we will rise, together.”

His message has resonated strongly with a disillusioned populace. Recent polling data suggests that nearly 68% of voters favor Trace over the current President, reflecting growing dissatisfaction with the administration’s handling of both the crisis and the subsequent national unrest.

Despite the bleak outlook for the incumbent, the campaign is expected to be fiercely contested. The President has doubled down on efforts to stabilize the nation, implementing emergency measures to curb further violence and vowing to bring those responsible for the assassinations to justice. The administration has also framed Trace as an opportunist with no experience governing at the highest level, warning that his policies lack the structure needed to ensure long-term stability.
As election preparations move forward, security remains a top priority. Authorities are bracing for further demonstrations, with some officials fearing that another surge of unrest could follow the results, regardless of the outcome.

With tensions high and the future uncertain, all eyes are on the American people as they prepare to decide who will lead them through one of the most turbulent periods in the nation’s history. The coming months will determine whether the country can find its footing once again—or if deeper fractures will emerge.

[written by ai]

The United States has plunged into turmoil following the swearing-in of the Speaker of the House as the new President, less than 24 hours after the shocking assassination of President Fredrick James Dawson and Vice President Col. Track Palin. The transition, meant to ensure stability, has instead ignited nationwide unrest as protests erupted in major cities, quickly escalating into full-blown riots.

Crowds gathered outside the Capitol as the emergency swearing-in ceremony took place, with tensions already at a boiling point. Many citizens, still reeling from the unprecedented attack on the nation’s highest offices, have questioned the legitimacy of the new administration, fueling a wave of civil unrest.

In Washington, D.C., demonstrators clashed with law enforcement, storming government buildings and setting vehicles ablaze. Similar scenes unfolded in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, where mass protests devolved into violent confrontations. Reports of looting, arson, and widespread vandalism have been confirmed, with authorities struggling to regain control of the streets.

The National Guard has been deployed in multiple states under emergency orders, but their presence has done little to deter the outrage. Citizens from all political spectrums have taken to social media, voicing their distrust in the sudden transition of power. Conspiracy theories and accusations of foul play have only added to the chaos, with some demanding a full investigation before any new leadership takes hold.

In an address to the nation, the newly sworn-in President called for unity and calm, condemning the violence while promising swift justice for those responsible for the assassination. "This is a time for resilience, not division," the President stated. "We must stand together as a nation in the face of this tragedy."

Despite the plea, the unrest continues to spread, with several governors considering state-wide curfews in an effort to curb the violence. The full extent of the damage remains unknown, but early estimates suggest billions in destruction and a rising death toll as clashes between civilians and authorities intensify.

As night falls, the nation teeters on the edge, uncertain of what the next days will bring. The world watches closely as the United States, once a pillar of democracy and stability, faces one of the darkest chapters in its history.

[written by ai]

It had been months since he started this journey to Moscow and now back home. He'd come home with Nox to help him of course, but he was here to collect the last of his things. To clean up what Phaser had destroyed in his sickness.  While he helped Nox, it was the perfect cover to re-engage in all the things he had built here. It was perfect. And he had so much going on Nox never ever noticed he wasn't there with him the whole time. He was busy with his own problems and when he was off doing his thing Sage was doing his.

It wasn't nefarious, and it wasn't sneaky, he just wasn't there taking care of Lily completely like he promised. Thankfully she was loud and her cries of hunger and pain pierced his brain fog and he could tend to the child. Nox was asking almost too much, but then what he had asked of Nox was just as much -- blind trust. And Nox gave it freely, no questions asked.

Sure it was selfish motivation, he wanted a new arm. But he didn't know what else it all entailed what other experiments he was part of. Blind trust was dangerous and Nox gave it freely to him. Sage had earned that right, built the trust. And he wouldn't hurt Nox, Sage knew this would work. He'd never hurt Aurora's little brother. Never put him in undue danger without his consent. Not that Nox ever said no.

The former scientist who worked for his mother and father was working for someone else in Alexandria. He'd been persuaded to do the surgery and provide the prosthetic. And Sage would do the rest. That's all he needed, just this one thing and the man would be free of all the evil he did when he worked with Sage's parents. Sage would leave him be. It was a simple price for the things he'd done. And he knew it.

Nox lay in a gown on the gurney and Sage stood over him. "You sure you are cool?"

Nox just looked at him with that look that said you know the answer.  Sage smirked. "Good.  You won't regret this."  Sage took the syringe from his pocket and tapped it gently before squeezing the the plunger just a little to remove any air. "It's the same tech in my body helping to maintain my chip. It'll help me give you what you have wanted since losing your arm, and we'll study the power from with in."  Sage smirked. "And it'll give you a little healing advantage since it'll be programmed to heal the wound we are creating to give you the new arm, and it'll just keep on doing it.  Good?"

"Fine.  Just get it the fuck over with." Nox's eyes hadn't left the needle Sage held up.  Opps, forgot his fear of needles. Was an easy thing to do since Nox wasn't afraid of much, but the look in his eyes said otherwise. 

Sage injected the nanobots into the IV port and then tossed the needle into the red bin. "All done.  Now you sure?"

"Let's just get it over with Sage. I don't want to be in the hospital any longer than I need to."

"You won't be here longer than necessary and the bots will help. I promise."

Nox nodded but he didn't say anything as the nurse came in and pushed Sage out of the room -- almost physically. "I'm going, I'm going."  Now it was just a wait and see sorta thing. The surgery would go well, the man had preformed it thousands of times, it was a regular prosthetic.  But when Sage was done with it, he'd feel again.  Nox would not break a tiny China cup with the mechanical hand. He could touch his lover as he did with the other one. All the things he's terrified of now, he'd be able to do -- when it was all done. When Sage's connections were all made.

His parents had experimented on him, and now he was experimenting on his friend, but it wasn't the same he told himself. This was not an experiment -- it would work, because he'd tested it, simulated it and he even gave a bionic arm to a rat in the lab. Things that few people knew he did in the depths of his boyfriend's home. He didn't experiment on kids or people and he hadn't done this without knowing the result. Nox would touch again, and feel again.  He would be as whole as he could be.

Sage would remove the fucking horde if he could, if he even knew where to begin.  His friend deserved a calm life but he wouldn't ever seek it or ask for it. So Sage would give it to him.  One way or another.

[[Continued from The Kao Orchid]]

A private jet saw her safely into Moscow, where she was met by a chauffeur and limousine. Liyana had been correct about the hideous cold, though Jia Xin was wrapped warm against it for the short walk that saw her into the luxury of heated seats. Her people had made all the arrangements at her direction, and she felt no anxiety to be here alone, yet it was strange to be so unsurrounded. When she stepped into the hotel lobby it was with some private amusement that she observed what she considered to be ordinary life flowing all around her. Radiance was among the city’s most luxurious and expensive hotels, of course. Yet normally Jia Xin would have no need to approach the desk herself in order to check in.

She was not staying as a Kao, of course – that was the whole point of leaving all the usual fuss back at home. Not that she would be here unprotected for the duration of the business she had arranged in Moscow either, but that was for later. For now, she would acclimate to the time zone and the new and foreign city in the decadent suite reserved for her use.

Rachel lay down on her bed feeling so relieved. The semester was finally over, and she had time to actually be a person instead of a drone reading vast tomes of the psychological theories of Freud, Skinner, Maslow, and Jung. Her professors had still told her to make sure she was still working on her thesis over break, but right now - she needed a break more than anything. 

Rachel pulled out her wallet and her first thought went to Cruz. She had told him at the wedding that she would make an effort to be in contact more and she had. It hadn’t changed how busy they both were. Both of them were dealing with grad school, but Cruz had his work with Jivana on top of that. Rachel had time now though, and it was too good to pass up a chance. She missed him a lot. 

Hey!!! Just got done with the semester. Miss you lots! Any chance I can see you soon

Rachel was really open to anything - dinner, dancing, or a night in the city. She just missed spending time with Cruz and hoped that he was available soon.

Twins ran in the family. When nineteen year old Eirini Vero returned home six months after running away, alone and very pregnant, the entire carnival celebrated her return to them in spite of her indelicate condition. For the Vero family itself, though, it was doubly significant. For generations their carnival attraction monopolised on the mystique of prophecy and divine twins, proclaimed proudly under the banner The Vero Sisters. It was not always twins at the helm (not that the world knew it) but the superstitions ran deep in the family mythos – all daughters were special and sight-touched, but twins were particularly auspicious, a marker of both luck and prosperity for the future, and more importantly a sign that the prophecies and fortunes of the Vero daughters remained true for a generation.

Eirini’s own twin, Esma, had already welcomed her first daughter into the world two years prior, with childhood sweetheart Fennix Pekelniak, whom she had married at only seventeen. A daughter was cause for joy, but twins were cause for security. No one asked Eirini about the father since he was a gorja and she returned without him. Unmarried mothers were still not common amongst the Roma people, though the Vas Carnival had softened somewhat into modernity over the years, and the Veros themselves already shucked convention with their matrilineal lines. However, despite how badly they were wanted, the promised twins were not meant to be. Only one of the babies would survive the birth.

Three years later, Esma and Fennix finally welcomed twins of their own, girls Masilda and Maira, and the matter of legacy was secured – at least for the next generation. Despite it, Lalitha’s inauspicious beginnings left a mark that did not fade. Great Mami taught her the Vero ways, but always with a tut and grumble. Her mother said it was just because Mami was old, old enough to well remember the days when Lalitha would have been considered a didikai because her father was an outsider, but Lalitha knew better – it was because a twin sister inexplicably dead in the womb was as good as a curse for their family. But if the Vero women had one rule, it was that they never read the fortunes for each other. And whatever else Lalitha was, she was still a Vero.

The carnival was home to more than five Romani families, and the intergenerational community was tight knit. In those days they travelled the Custody, setting up tents and entertaining the masses wherever they were welcomed. In the provenance of fortune-telling the Veros were natural rivals of the Vas family, but the conflicts never filtered down to the children, who intermingled freely and without bias. Lalitha can’t remember a time when she was not a little bit in love with Dominik Vas, Renáta’s son. He was firm friends with Ceija, Esma’s eldest and Lalitha’s favourite cousin. She was always in their shadow.

As a child Lalitha was highly creative but fickle as a hummingbird. She drew with Ceija, fashioned makeshift ouija boards to summon spirits with Sámiel, and looked after the snakes with Viktoria. She was always making music, inspired by everything around her, but rarely wrote anything down. In their free evenings her compositions were spontaneous things, sometimes with just a clapped beat and impulsive lyrics. The singing and dancing was collaborative, most memorable when Roza Vas joined in with her violin. It was only ever for family, spun around the fires once the visitors had all gone home, but it always drew a crowd, even the elders – even maudlin Esper.

She was fourteen the first time she got drunk on Pekelniak moonshine, and it was like her mind opened to a whole new world. Bright with the intoxication, she encouraged Ceija to perform her first tattoo behind one of the tents, homemade with none of the proper equipment: a small smiley face on Lalitha’s inner forearm. That same night, emboldened by the alcohol, she kissed Dominik for the first time. They became inseparable after, though the relationship remained chaste in line with custom and the watchful eyes of both their families. Infatuation blossomed to something more; she fell in love quickly and deeply, consumed by feelings she poured out into music; melodies and lyrics she finally began to write down when the inspiration struck like lightning.

Six years later Dominik made their intention official. But when Renáta read the match’s fortune, she condemned the marriage to be a barren one and refused to give her blessing. Neither of them had expected it to be an easy persuasion; everything at the carnival was a performance to some degree, and the union between a Vas and a Vero was a noteworthy juncture in the carnival’s ever unfolding story. But neither had they anticipated such a forceful condemnation. After a family conversation from which Lalitha was excluded, Dominik acquiesced quietly to his mother’s wishes. Lalitha felt her heart break, as surprised as she was hurt. She went to her own family, begged her elders to read the fortune themselves and prove that Renáta was both vindictive and wrong. But even her own mother, who once abandoned the carnival and its customs for reasons she never shared, claimed that Renáta’s word was as good as law, whether it was true or not.

The rift between the two families deepened.

Soon after Dominik grew Sick and the carnival ground to what would become its final halt in Moscow. His younger sister Roza swiftly fell to the same illness, right on the heels of the most magical show of lights and awe and music the carnival had ever seen. Tents became colourful wooden houses as the anchor set in. Less than six months later it was Lalitha’s turn to suffer. She doesn’t remember if Dominik came to her bedside while she was writhing with the fevers, but Roza did. Like the others, she learned to control her new gift with music and dancing. Lalitha survived, but it felt like a death. Her life was changed.

Description:

Lalitha loves her home and her family, and would do anything for them, but she struggles to find her place there. With nowhere else to go she still lives in the little house with her mother and her aunt’s family. But now that the carnival has grown roots more and more often she roams the city, falling foul of a society that sees her as an outsider. The nightlife dazzles her. She travels between bars peddling her gifts, making no distinction between dingy backstreets and high end venues guarded by security that rarely lets her through. Not because she’s naive but because she’s fearless, and refuses to be categorised to where society believes she fits. Sometimes she busks in Old Arbat, though she doesn’t have a licence and is usually moved on.

Lalitha is persuasive, spontaneous and emotional. She can read palms and cards (which is to say she can read people) and is both superstitious and skeptical of the answers provided. She wants to believe though.

She has a knack for inspiring others and awakening desire and ambition. When she is passionate she is unrestrained, and in her enthusiasm she can easily get carried away. Alcohol often makes her incandescent, which others mostly find compelling, but it enhances all the extremes in her personality – good and bad. Risks seem like adventures. She doesn’t think before she acts. Her heart is usually in the right place, but consequences rarely care for intention. Poor decisions have landed her in debt with the wrong people.

She’s a talented musician and singer, but her deepest mastery lies in an ability for composition and lyricism that cannot help but move. Her music communicates something in the soul, whether it be joy, sadness, anger, ecstasy or madness: nothing remains forbidden or taboo. Her performances are usually intimate and spellbinding. Though the lyrics are highly poetical (and not always in English), the feeling behind them is personal and raw: Lalitha cannot separate the two. She usually plays guitar or darbuka drum.

She’s an undiscovered talent, and a diamond in the rough, but she craves authenticity rather than fame. Her creative processes are all chaos unsuited to commercialisation.

Lalitha is small (5’1’’), with dark eyes and brown hair. She has various tattoos, all small images dotted around and down one arm. They include Ceija’s smiley face, a coffin, a jester, a slice of cake, a rainbow, a cartoon ghost, musical notes, and on the back of her shoulder, a crude dancing devil in red ink. She likes jewellery, often wearing intricate pieces made by her uncle Fennix.

I know there are other muses out there (Roza and Danica if I remember correctly). This is something I’ve been thinking about for a bit. Are the muse powers (power to inspire artists/scientists to greater heights) come from the one power or is more of a “natural” gift to inspire? In the recording session thread, I played it as the latter. I think of it as a more natural inclination as opposed to a more supernatural push/manipulation. Any thoughts?

Marta didn't come here much, and this was the first time she had consciously decided to come here since Sierra had left.  Ricky had told her that she could stay a second night with Elyse, and Elyse had agreed.  Elyse didn't like it here either, but Marta was here now.  She felt braver since her talk with Hayden, and she was certain that she should really begin to understand this place.  It was a scary place.  She knew her thoughts could change things in an instant, and she had the ability to 'wake up' should she need to.  

Splash was here too.  That was another thing.  Splash had a better understanding of the dream than she did.  Wolves just seemed to naturally get this place.  They were inherently connected to it. Splash also wasn't too happy that Marta had decided to come, but Marta did.  She couldn't learn how this place worked without being here.  She awoke in Nox's Building, but this wouldn't do.  She needed someplace else.

"Splash," she said, the words translating to images that she sent to her companion. "How to I get to the woods from here."

Splash sent her back the instructions.  She closed her eyes, and pictured the spot in the woods where she had met Elyse and Sierra, remembering every detail.  She even remembered the scents, and the way the wind rustled through the trees, and when she opened her eyes, she was there.

"Okay - I have to remember.  I'm real, not a dream, and I got to remember what I look like." her clothing, which had been shifting slightly solidified.  She smirked and thought of herself with a bow, and suddenly one was in her hands and she felt the familiar weight of a quiver on her back.  Now she just wondered what she should do now.

((OoC: Any dream walker is welcome - no plans here))