HEAR YE, HEAR YE: Citadel News -- Everyone Read!

[Guenhwyfar]

OOC: This is a general post for all players in the Citadel. You may assume that your character is aware of, or has been exposed to, all of the information contained in this post.

Samheen 5. The joyous atmosphere that had suffused the Citadel leading up to the Festival was gone, and in its place a feeling more somber, more tense, had risen up, oppressive as the fog that wreathed the early-morning streets.

Many people had been at the Festival of Pan – but, by now, everyone had heard about it. Stories and rumours abounded, all with varying degrees of truthfulness – but all the rumours, no matter how fanciful, agreed on once crucial point: something horrible had happened last night.

Voices were low and urgent or loud and angry; glances were suspicious or hostile; and the streets were covered with slogans and leaflets in varying degrees of eloquence. “The Practice of Magicks is the Downfall of the Virtuous Soul,” began one carefully-lettered poster plastered on several walls. HOW MANY ROZES DID CESER PLUCK? read another, slightly less literate sign, scrawled in red paint outside a popular saloon.

“…And then all of the magicians took off their veils, and it was the councillors, all of them, but possessed, and that would explain why our damn sewers still don’t work, what with them focusing on channeling the dark arts instead of channeling waste water, don’t you know,” one irate middle-aged woman was saying to another as they hurried along the streets, eyes darting warily from side to side.

“Well, I heard that it was the same thing as the storm, do you remember? On the second, or the first? Anyway, Julia heard from Elizabeta whose maid’s cousin was at the Festival that it was some kind of demon,” and here the snooty-looking young aristocrat lowered her voice, “like a sex demon, so that just goes to show what having all these wantons who are no better than they should be running around our city and going after our men,” she continued haughtily before getting into her carriage with her friend, who was nodding solemnly.

“And then the Caesar pulls out his enormous sword and starts waving it about at the ladies, hollerin’ at them to submit to his investigation,” slurred one man leaving a tavern, already drunk, despite the early hour. “Aye, there are some of those ladies that I’d like to investigate with my enormous sword,” his friend guffawed, making a lewd hand gesture.

Not all of the gossip this morning was so innocuous, however.

“What is this message of joy we keep hearing about?” bellowed one street preacher, who seemed to be attracting quite a crowd, which included several Purple Guardsmen, nodding gravely. “It is joy, they say, love; or magic only ‘in harmony with nature.’ But it is not joy, but whoring – and it is no devout man who thinks to control the very forces of nature! Sin follows sin, and it is we, the innocent and good, who are made to suffer while they wreak carnal havoc on the streets of our city and call down the wrath of Illuminatus! We must stamp out this viper of immorality, magic and sex and all things dark and vile, or it will sink its foul teeth into us and infect us with its venom…”

“…threatening honest citizens with that sword of his, the great peacock,” one lady said indignantly to another. “And who’s to say that this wasn’t all a game to get those who stand against him out of the way? I heard they took many people prisoner – but where are those prisoners now? Where are they being kept? What is their crime? Now that’s something I’d like to know, and I think it’s my right as a citizen, whatever that preening autocrat may think…”

“…and it stems from a problem at the very core of our government. If the Caesar would take matters firmly into hand,” one well-dressed man was saying in a low, serious voice to another wealthy-seeming man, “none of these problems would be arising. I hear that some of the instigators were courtiers themselves. What sort of ruler is he if he cannot even rule his own court? Think on everything that I have said to you, Matteo, but keep it quiet for now, hmm?” The two men gave each other significant glances then parted ways.

The Festival had been intended to sow the seeds of Pan’s love throughout the whole city. Unfortunately, the seeds it had sown seemed to be of a different sort…

[Maeve]

At late tradetide of that day Purple Guards marched the streets. Several houses were checked systematically, and not a few of them in the patricians sector too. What they were looking for was unknown. Prisoners were taken to the palace to disappear in the dark dungeons under the Citadel without them having so much time as to even utter a whisper to their relatives. The whole town was buzzing with rumors as to who had been taken and why.

All gates to the Citadel were closed by the guards, visitors turned away. Even the harbor was shut down, a large iron chaing hung over the entrance of the port. The merchants laments fell on deaf ears and those trading houses expecting shipments were told that mage messages had been send to all ships to detour to Dort or Muchislie.

[Guenhwyfar]

Early Eveningtide Samheen 8, The Massage Palor is open as a supporter location run by Ahren of the Red Rose Guild.