Regarding Sanctions (Shortly after the Glatisant fight of the Rise Era)

[youandyoualone]

Although I know that clean-up from the battle with the Glatisant and the message gleaned from its remains is likely of the utmost importance as of now--as well as the matter of the unintelligible Familiars and Spirit Companions--I do have some news that I hope will aid in improving the lot of the Adversaries of the earliest era.

Before her vocabulary became limited to a single word, the vixen who attached herself to me instructed me on how I might use Oracular knowledge to glean further knowledge on Sanctions. What I have learned is this:

These Sanctions use the power of existing bonds between people, either the ones doing the Sanctioning or those bonded with the person Sanctioned. As these bonds are real in the Realm of Dreams, they can prevent action just as well as rope or shackles might--although 'tis only acts with intention they can prevent, not accidental acts, for it is the dream of action that they prevent.

They can be entered into willingly and with consent, but unless that consent was explicitly and deliberately part of that Sanction, rescinding consent would not break the Sanction.

After learning this, I wished to know more of how one would break the Sanctions and Fidelite, who was then still in possession of her full vocabulary, advised me to build a Dreamcatcher and have it gather energy in the Questing Country of the earliest era for roughly a week. Fortunately, I was already there after the bridge broke.

Shortly before the battle started, my Dreamcatcher was deemed sufficiently filled by my still-coherent Familiar, and now that the fighting has concluded, I have had time to look within to see what might break the Sanctions. That information was granted to me in a series of three visions:

The first, of bitter and acrimonious arguments between Champions and Oracles, leading to the severing of a bond group, also severing all Sanctions they created.

The second, of a cabal of Adversaries furtively meeting, banding together, forming a fresh bond--overwriting the Sanction with the energy of their alliance.

And the third and most intriguing, of a heavy, metal-hafted mace, light wavering around its head like one reads in reports of desert mirages.

Comments

/Bumps to Private Level II

[triggerhappytraitor]

[[there's a moment of surprise there before he answers]]

...You could say that, yes.

PRIVATE LEVEL II FOREVER

[youandyoualone]

[There's a slight pause before Delaunay replies, as he judges how much he wishes to reveal to this man from another world.]

So have I. From close friends, in fact.

[triggerhappytraitor]

[[Another pause, that almost feels like a wince]]

For me... the founder of my organization.

[[It sounds so simple, to just say it that way. But everything Tennouji had done..]]

...and in many ways... almost everyone else from it.

[[Even if the man-- no, the Trial-- he had thought had been Hirose's father hadn't even been him at all, he still couldn't forget being locked in that containment unit, staring at the man's face through that tiny window as he finally admitted everything... And he wasn't even sure what to think of Kiryuu's transformation.]]

spoilers for the first kushiel trilogy

[youandyoualone]

I am sorry.

[And he is. Betrayal is a bitter pill.]

It was an old friend of mine, a woman who was once my lover and even after remained a confidant. And, it turned out, an even older friend conspired with her.

[He still counts the second betrayal. He might have been dead by the time it happened, but that conspiracy had nearly killed Ysandre, whose protection had been Anafiel's life's work.]

[triggerhappytraitor]

...to have someone you've known so closely turn against you...

[[He couldn't imagine it. He'd barely been able to comprehend the depths of Tennouji's betrayal, the levels to which he had been used by the man in the few years he had been part of BOARD... That situation... it would be like if Sayoko had betrayed him, something that never would have happened.]]

[youandyoualone]

I did not find out about it until after I died and was brought here. But yes. She--that is, my old friend and lover--was in conspiracy with the man whose hired men killed both my former pupil and myself. I do not think she meant for us to die, but even so.

[triggerhappytraitor]

That...!

[[One moment, he's just...]]

For what reason would someone...?!

okay let's assume this thread is going to be spoilers forever for the first kushiel book

[youandyoualone]

What other reason but to gain the throne? Or so I was told by others who knew the end of the matter.

[triggerhappytraitor]

...Just a throne? Just to rule a country?

[youandyoualone]

[His mental voice is very dry.] For the man whose hired men killed me, it was a single country. For my old lover, who later betrayed him, it was two.

... to be fair to her, I do not think she wanted me to die. Just the man who carried a message for me.

[triggerhappytraitor]

[[Pardon him, he's just... trying to wrap his brain around this all]]

Even for two...

It... just seems such a small thing to risk the life of someone you've cared for over.

[[Coming from the man who couldn't even bring himself to seal the Joker Undead to save the world, because a small girl cared for him.]]

LET'S GO FULL IN WITH THE SPOILERS AND NAME NAMES

[youandyoualone]

[Oh Tachibana you sweet summer child.]

You've never met Melisande, I'm afraid. Games of thrones and crowns were her truest love.

SPOILERS. SPOILERS EVERYWHERE.

[triggerhappytraitor]

...things like that aren't games.

[[a little bit of an intensity there.]]

[youandyoualone]

Not to you and I, no. For myself, such things were always deathly serious. And as I was trying to see the Dauphine safely to her coronation, I suppose we were always destined to clash.

But what of you? What did your employers do to you?

[triggerhappytraitor]

[[There's a moment's pause.]]

...He restarted the Battle Fight, the way that the dominant species of the Earth was chosen, in my world. We had thought it had been an accident, and that we were trying to end the Fight and save the world from destruction, but he claimed our job from the start had been ensuring his victory in the Fight, so that he could become a god and remake the world how he wished.

[youandyoualone]

Blessed Elua.

... I see why Melisande's motivations seem petty to you.

[triggerhappytraitor]

Even Hirose-- the Trial with Hirose's father's memories-- was working to unlock the secrets of immortal life. [[a wry note there, considering the ichor currently in his veins...]]

[youandyoualone]

I see...

Perhaps he ought to have asked a vampire for aid.

[triggerhappytraitor]

That sort of thing doesn't exist back home. Just the Undead. And I doubt any of them would have been willing to help a human like that.

[youandyoualone]

... I thought vampires were a kind of undead?

[He is Slightly Confused now.]

[triggerhappytraitor]

It's something different. The Undead of my world are immortal creatures, created to do battle for the species they represented in order to determine the dominant species of the world. The name Undead refers to their immortality, and that they never can die.

[youandyoualone]

Elua's balls. And this Battle Fight you mentioned, that is how they accomplish this?

[triggerhappytraitor]

Yeah.

Originally, it was at the start of the world, before there was any other life on the planet. So the Battle only affected those who were part of it.

[[a long, deep, exhausted sigh follows]]

Having it restart in a fully populated world...

[youandyoualone]

... seems a recipe for disaster.

[triggerhappytraitor]

...Yeah.

[[Disaster seemed... somehow too mild of a word for what it all had been]]

And the only tool we had to fight them with was still just a prototype at the time. We were lucky that the Undead were in a bit of a state of shock when first released, and just ran for freedom. By the time the Fight started in earnest...

[[He had had what, a week of training before the first time the Searcher had gone off? Less? He couldn't even remember any longer. It had felt like barely hours...]]