let fury have the hour,

[agogemod]

WHO? Everybody!
WHAT? Agoge's third TDM! And the death of an important guy. And some very upset royalty.
WHEN? Late 1792, Paris.
ANYTHING ELSE? Violence, as always. Please warn in subject lines for anything beyond physical violence, and move to a personal journal if things go beyond PG-13.

IT'LL BE FINE;

Paris, 1792: revolutionary france.

read the France setting infopages

arrival for new recruits

(Note: If you were one of the people who used the previous TDM and want to use that as canon while still participating in this one, feel free! The following will still happen, though the guide will apologize for a malfunction in your BCE causing you to zap through the intervening month instead of joining your comrades like you should have. You'll be assured the glitch is fixed now, and it probably is. Probably.)

You wake up in a Parisian hotel room with a kind woman standing near the door, waiting for you to awaken. You have none of your clothing, just black military-issued underwear, and none of your previous possessions beyond the one you chose (if you remember choosing) to bring with you.

The woman by the door speaks French, and if you didn't understand the language before, you do now. If you have questions as to what's going on, she'll answer: you are a member of COST, a paramilitary organization of time travelers fighting against the Regency, a tyrannous kingdom of the future who are trying to stamp out freedom and individuality in the name of peace.

She will provide you with the clothing necessary to fit in at this time, and show you how to use your BCE implant to look up information on this time period and its social and political mores. She won't let you leave until you're properly dressed to fit in, but once you are, she'll wish you luck.

KILL THE KING

It doesn't matter if you're new, or if you've been here a while. You'll hear about the execution going on today. It's as though the barely restrained urban chaos of Paris has ground to a halt. Everything is about the king. Is it really going to happen? Are they really going to do it? Can they do it? Is it even possible?

Anyone out of the loop will be filled in, but with no small amount of ridicule: Today is the day of the king's execution. His trial has wrapped up, and the National Convention voted to execute him for treason and tyranny.

The crowd at the execution is enormous, a riotous mob of passion barely restrained. Everyone is jockeying for a better view, with children and adults climbing up on nearby statues, lampposts, the sides of houses, rooves, some even hang from windows. Everyone watches the scaffold.

The prison cart arrives with no fanfare save the yells of the crowd. Within it sits a small, fat little man, looking like he's doing his best to remain composed. He's brought to the scaffold, and his crimes are read out: colluding with foreign powers, and the crime of royalty, which is anathema to the republic of France.

When asked for his final words, Louis Capet, known to some as King Louis XVI, speaks in a quiet voice. "I forgive my enemies."

When the blade comes down, the crowd errupts into cheers. Many rush forward to touch the blood of a king, dipping bits of cloth in it in an attempt to save it.

I PREDICT A RIOT

It's as though all the built up tension in Paris exploded when the king was killed.

Who knows what started it. Rumors spread like wildfire, and it doesn't matter, does it? In the end, most of Paris is swarmed with chaos, especially in the areas nearest to where the king was executed. There's no doubt that the riot and the king's death are directly related; no peasant currently throwing stones and breaking windows will deny it.

Fights are happening with great frequency. It only takes a word, a half sentence, for someone to decide you're some kind of counter-revolutionary. There is a current of anxiety in Paris that hasn't gone away; after reaching a fever pitch, it has expressed itself with violence and chaos.

let's visit the tuileries

The Tuileries was the royal palace in Paris, the last residence of the king before his death. Of course the people of France end up clamoring at its gates, screaming profanities and attempting to scale them.

The majority of the guard let them do this, making only the most token of efforts to keep the peasantry back. But one guard, a man by the name of Antoine Colin, seems to become spooked and shoots repeatedly into the crowd before someone knocks him out.

By then, though, it's too late. The crowd was rambunctious, but not murderous. Now it's bloodthirsty, and the gates are stormed. It isn't long before the common people of France are trampling through the corridors of power. Inside, they'll mostly find servants running and hiding, and lots of valuables to steal.

Most are content with that, but not all. Some clamor for the deaths of the queen and the royal children-- per the laws of inheritance, Marie Capet's remaining son is now King of France. Should he not die as well?

The queen is hidden in a safe room, a hollow wall inside her apartments. Do you try to find her? Try to save her? Try to kill her yourself?

...And what about those kids hiding in there with her?

BRING IN THE TROOPS

The riot in the Tuileries lasts several hours, well past nightfall. It's beginning to peter off, people loosing their energy or vigor, when the sound of gunfire echoes from the front courtyard.

General Lafayette has arrived to save the queen, and brought with him a retinue of personal soldiers. All on horseback, brandishing firearms and sabers, they stream through the expansive halls of the Tuileries and attack anyone who looks out of place. They're here to clean up this mess with no concern for more filthy peasants getting in the way.

Aftermath

The night is a long one. Several fires break out in various parts of Paris, shops are looted, and several die in the Tuileries. The queen has disappeared, along with Lafayette. Some say she and Lafayette died, and they'll show you the bodies for a couple sou. Others claim they saw them riding off into safety just before sunrise. There are already talks of hunting them down, trying to find the traitors.

Only one thing is known for sure: It may be advisable to stay inside for the foreseeable future.

read the France setting infopages

NAV NETWORK LOGS OOC PLURK DISCORD

Comments

The King is Dead

[mercurialize]

[Kylar knows better than to walk the streets when the tension is thicker than Pilth fog. Above or below is much safer, faster. Not knowing enough of the city, he chooses above. He would love to intervene every innocent's fall from a mob, but that would be exhausting. He has to pick and choose. This time he had his choice and was about to jump in before the woman beat him to it.]

Good kick.

[He comments more to himself. Maybe he doesn't need to help after all. He doesn't charge in immediately when the others decide to defend their rightfully kicked comrade, he'd just be mistaken for another one of them. So he watches and follows and when he sees an opening he takes a dagger from his belt and throws it to a wall landing hopefully nearby her shoulder. It's not a threat, but kicking can't save her if another pulls a knife or worse. If she bothers to look up he'll spare her a wink.]

[rebelqueen]

[The steel whizzes past her in a flash. It is painfully close to the shoulder that had already been stabbed before, by an ally and friend. Dinah's black eyes even go wide when it lands true, vibrating quietly in the riot.

Indeed she does glance, and she does catch someone close by, a boy? A man? But certainly he is winking at her. That earns no visible reaction. Dinah only reaches for the dagger quickly.

Not often did she have to deal with blades of this size. Her training had been mainly with swords and in armor. She had watched, however, some of the Yurkei with their deft weapons, the Spades with their desperate antics.

So she flips the knife in her hand, blade out, stance defensive as she begins to take cautious steps backwards. This would be a time she only wished she had her Yurkei guards with their bows to strike while she kept them busy.]

[mercurialize]

[Unfortunately for her, he doesn't have a bow and technically she's holding his only weapon. But then, how involved does he want to be?

He steps carefully toward the edge of the roof, sound eaten and muffled away by Talent. He might not have any projectiles exactly, but he makes a great one all by himself. He waits for one to be in range before jumping down, aiming to take one, if not two with him to the ground. It's not the most graceful landing regardless thanks to his stump of a missing lower right arm. When he does stabilize himself his crouch is low, feral, and not at all befitting his civilian attire.]

Am I interrupting?

[rebelqueen]

I believe you're interrupting them.

[The assailants have take several steps back, eying the newcomer with complete and open suspicion. What must it look like to have a teenaged woman wielding a knife with pride and discipline and a teenaged man crouching as if ready to strike?

It seems the young duo being, well, young does little to pacify the crowd. Dinah did not want to engage these people. They were citizens, though innocent would be ill-fitting.]

Move back and I promise no harm will come to anyone!

[Still, she sounds like a queen, but what good was it to go back when she'd already ordered these same people? To the newcomer, she hisses:]

We must leave this place!

[mercurialize]

[A bold promise to make. But would peace now be worth it? They could just move on, harass another, take their failure of this one out on another. He could see them, judge them for what's best. But this probably wasn't the place. "Blend in" and all.

Kylar watches each of them and nods his head to the side down the street.]

Ladies first. I'm following you.

[rebelqueen]

[Those words sounded familiar. Luckily, she's had more than her fair share of leadership experience.

They were outnumbered. If they fought back, they would be overcome. If they ran the opposite way, surely they would be stopped. What they need is a distraction, and a very fine one too.

Dinah roughly grabs the nearest person and shoves them into their assailants. Maybe that would work?]

Run!

[She barely stops herself as she starts to push and shove others into the way. She only hopes none of them die in the wake of their escape.]

[mercurialize]

[He's not usually one to run, but he's also not usually one to play all of his cards in the open either. He follows her lead and is rather impressed that shoving works as well as it does. It's enough to send some stumbling backward, at the least. It's a temporary fix but Kylar's guessing this is one of those "no killing" scenarios. When one gets in his way he drops low and sweeps the man's legs out from under him before promptly jumping to the side and around to catch up.]

So you have a plan? A destination?

[He's already thinking of his own, but this is her jaunt, not his.]

[rebelqueen]

[For once in a very long time, she hadn't thought that far ahead.]

My plan is to live. As for where... away from this chaos.

[She has no willingness to confess that she knows little of this place. Had she a map, or at least even a vague idea, there would be a more concrete destination. But how to predict where a mob would go?

Briefly, she ducks and darts between the legs of people, before reemerging.]

Do you know of a place?

[mercurialize]

No.

[He says it bluntly. How would he know? But then, even if he doesn't know of a place, he can surely find places. His heels ground to a halt and he ducks down, allowing someone catching up to them to stumble over him face first. He should just turn around, he should just fight them all. If he had his poisons...

But the pause allows him to see a possible out.]

This way.

[He tries to grab ahold of her wrist, tries to lead them down an alleyway just thin enough for one person. It's a little risky, a little tight, but the mob will have a lot more trouble getting through than them.]

[rebelqueen]

[Well, certainly she wasn't expecting to be physically dragged away, but she does keep up.

The alleyway... narrow it is, but Dinah is determined to squeeze through, no matter the method. Her steps have become far more calculated so as to not trip in this alley.

She'd find herself slammed into a wall or the floor if that happened.]

Quickly!

[Dinah is clambering over whatever happens to be in the alleyway: broken crates, destroyed objects, even stray animals. Her knuckles continue to scrape and bleed in her attempts to stay balanced.]

[mercurialize]

[It's not long before they reach the end of the alleyway and spill into the next street. A few of the mob had figured out their quick diversion but their luck in the narrow alley was far less. Kylar looks about the street quickly and chooses a direction at random. He doesn't know these streets, doesn't know their twists or turns but he saw some of it from the roof and he'll just have to go along with that.]

What did you do to piss them all off?

[He knows what he saw, she tried to help someone, but this is kind of ridiculous over just one thwart to punish one individual.]

[rebelqueen]

[I spoke like a queen.

She dares not say it aloud, but she knows that would at least be some great part of it.]

I gave them an order.

[From there, she lets the strange boy decide for himself. Wonderland or not, she suspects these Frenchmen and Frenchwomen would have her head for even being royalty. What little they knew of how she empathizes with them.

Dinah begins to throw whatever is closest behind her in a desperate attempt to create a blockade. The pursuers have seemed, for now, to have given up and gone back to the real bloodshed. Just so, she begins to slow down, to catch her breath, but she follows just the same.]

They've gone. They have no more use for us.

[mercurialize]

Or they found the person they were originally hunting for.

[He lets that sit. This was sloppily done, but he didn't know how many of his cards to play at once with these people. They seemed to jump against someone else for magic, even the slightest bit of illusion. He'd send the whole city into a further frenzy with his own.

Wow, this logic almost makes him sound responsible.]

Try not to do that again, or at least have more of a plan so they don't get the guy anyway.

[rebelqueen]

They hunt for anyone.

[Her tone is sharp, almost cutting. She would never allow her own people to behave in such a manner, not even in war.

Dinah has no recent memory of being given advice by a stranger. She had been surrounded always by her advisors and... she doesn't dare think of him. He always had sound advice but she did away with his sanity cleanly.]

There was little time to stop and think as a man was about to be beat to death. [And maybe he was already dead anyway.] But yes. I should have thought further. [A mistake she has no plans of repeating. She knows the pain of impulsiveness.]

[mercurialize]

[Kylar could argue that they should have gotten rid of the source, cut off the head. There's always a head. Maybe that's what he'll do, when she isn't looking.]

Not further, just differently.

[Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.]

Never mind. You're all right?