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houseofstrangeLatest things to come out of playing sims of the Praadera.
The nature of the Lock (where Briieth is), and the storage dimension:
The storage dimension is not actually located inside the Door, Harliquin found a way to have to widely separated dimensions linked so they seem like they are a part of each other.
Some time, way back in the time of the Keeper War, Harliquin found a smaller Rift fissure that led into a side passage of the Rift just off the main passage that leads to the main fissure into the Keeper Reality. She used her Riftfire ability to make the Rift-crystal in the side passage grow until it totally sealed off the passage from the main part of the Rift, leaving a small pocket of open space just outside the lesser fissure. It is inside that pocket that the storage dimension is located.
The Lock - the sub-dimension that contains Briieth's luxurious "gilded cage" - is literally located inside the Door, but is set up so that all interfaces with anything outside it translate to the storage dimension. This is done by two boxes of Rift-crystal that are linked directly to each other. One box is the outer box, one is the inner box. Anything seen from the outer box is seen from the inner, no matter where the inner is located. Stepping into the outer box instantly transports a person into the inner box and exiting the inner instantly places a person outside the outer.
The Lock is the inner box of it's pair while the outer is built into the walls of the North Wing of White Villa on Flame Island of the unnamed planet in an unnamed system in an unnamed galaxy in the storage dimension.
Harliquin has done this sort of trick in other places, most recently the townhouse she lives in on Tarlia's Earth (the Earth in the particular dimension Tarlia was born in). The inside box of the townhouse is actually located in the Rift pocket, while the other is retrofitted into the townhouse's walls. The interface with the outside is better than the Lock's, the Lock has crystal domes over any open spaces like the gardens and courtyards. The townhouse has an apparently open garden, balconies and open-able windows. Harliquin improved the technique of building her displaced havens over the eons.
Andrion
Another thing that has been inspired is the backstory of Briieth and Andrion, as well as current events involving him.
Andrion Herros Iys Quaadeccalln - second son of the head of the Quaadon family, part of the pacifist faction in the Keepers (who believe that if the Keepers just stopped fighting the Demons, then the Demons would also stop) - went against his family's pacifist beliefs and joined the Enforcers - the Keeper army. He did spectacularly well and when a member of the Crown Princess's personal guard had to retire, he did so well that he came to her personal notice. After Briieth - a very good fighter in her own right - challenged him to a fight and he managed to fight her to a draw, she decided to hire him to her guard.
Andrion however practically fell in love at first sight and did his absolute best to prove that Briieth's assessment of his abilities were not unfounded, fast becoming the most valued member of the Princess Guard. At the same time Briieth started to get to know this Quaadrien rebel and found him friendly, charming, supportive, and generally someone she clicks with very easily.
They grow close, becoming fighting partners and otherwise supporting each other - Andrion supporting Briieth in the face of the opinions of the Praadera Council, and in the face of her father's advancing illness, Briieth supporting Andrion in the face of negative opinions of those who are against the pacifists, negative opinions of the pacifist faction, and in particular the opinions of his family, who are unhappy about him getting so close to the royal family (who, as the leaders in the war, they view as the prime movers of the intolerable violence that the Keepers have sunk to - at least according to their dogma).
But despite their closeness and growing affection, they both hold off getting too serious, even in the face of frequent dreams and Oraania's needling, until a battle against Demon forces where Andrion is injured and poisoned with an almost always fatal Demon poison. Briieth ends up staying by Andrion's bed for days on end, refusing to leave, and eventually falls asleep with her head on his chest and having a dream of her standing before the Keeper host as their queen, a blood-spattered Oraania to her left, with an undefined dark figure and an undefined white figure behind her, and an undefined figure who is part black, part white and part rainbow behind them, and on her right is standing Andrion, as her consort, with their also undefined child standing on his right.
On waking, Briieth guesses this is a vision of a possible future, and while she doesn't know what to make of the blood-spattered Oraania and the figures behind her, the image of Andrion at her side... that makes her finally decide that she wants him as her own.
As it happens, Andrion wakes, somehow having beaten the poison, having also seen the same vision, and the two of them swear they will wed as soon as propriety and custom will allow.
There is a bit of further fuss when a young woman Andrion was betrothed to, before he was disinherited from the Quaadon family, tries to make a play to take him from Briieth, but her attempt is seen for what it is, an attempt by her family and the Quaadon family to repair the damage to the Quaadon reputation Andrion did with his rebellion and involvement with Briieth.
Ksalla
Another point: Just to put it down somewhere, despite my original thoughts years ago, Carhdrisian is not Andrion's son. (Though some amongst the Keepers believe he is.)
Ksalla Misiiryiccalliran originally held a position as Briieth's personal assistant. She and Briieth were quite close friends and after Briieth married Andrion Ksalla also became good friends with him.
Somewhere in the latter part of the War, a wandering Rift-being came into the Keeper Reality and ended up spending time living amongst the Keepers. During that time he got romantically involved with Ksalla, but his wanderlust took hold again and he ended up heading back into the Rift again. It wasn't until after he left that Ksalla found she was pregnant.
Carhdrisian was not born until after the end of the War, and after Briieth's self-imprisonment, so some of the more hard-nosed types thought that Ksalla no longer had any protection, until Andrion stepped in and declared her his official mistress, and her son his ward.
Since then their relationship has mostly been one of convenience and mutual support, with Ksalla mostly transferring her assistant function over to Andrion.
Modern Events
In most recent times, Harliquin has noted that Shscrringcima's regular assaults on the inside of the Door have gotten a lot stronger, so much so that Briieth had started to struggle to keep the Door from weakening. Because of this, for the first time since the end of the War, Harliquin shows Andrion the way into the Lock.
Andrion has been aware that Harliquin was the one who designed the Lock and helped set up the trap that would capture Shscrringcima, and as a result has had mixed feelings about Harliquin because of the resulting separation from his beloved wife, but has never directly asked Harliquin if she had access to Briieth for fear that his going to her would break the seal she powers.
In this case however Harliquin is the one who makes the move.
So for the next several weeks Andrion is basically commuting between the Keeper Citadel and the Lock, but even that is a strain on his mental state as he desperately needs uninterrupted time with Briieth.
As it happens, at one point when she is visiting White Villa, Oraania runs into him and sees into his mental state, recognising the signs of someone breaking since she is already broken herself. With the help of Harliquin's Rift-cat (who basically followed her home from the Rift and has been enigmatically hanging around since) and Harliquin and Khyilenna's Fire-dancing, she gains a pendant that can stabilise her mind for short periods of time, but she is advised that she needs "decompression" time, where she needs to let her insanity loose or the constant stabilisation will stress her mind too much and end up making her insanity a lot worse.
With this aid, Oraania summarily takes over Andrion's daily work and orders him back to the Lock to stop the gradual breakdown she is seeing in him.
In my head, the Oraania sim I have made is her in her royal persona - the face she presents to the Keepers after taking over from Andrion. She hasn't worn this persona since before her first abduction, and even then, the way she is now has it's signs of what she's been through - a wilder sense to her than existed before, side effect of both her insanity and also the influence of living so long with Khyilenna, Mareph and Harliquin, none of whom are pure Order, what with the Rift Fire being Chaos Magic at it's purest, and Mareph and Harliquin's demon sides.
There's also the amusing image of Orin facing down the hard-nosed faction in the Praadera Council that had once campaigned for her "merciful" execution - and facing them down armed with Knights of the Flame crystal swords (the blades are made out of Rift Crystal).
Arran Mrgan
Another situation arises back home, at the townhouse - or more accurately, the park down the road.
Oraania encounters a young man who for some reason, on her first meeting with him, scares her badly, leaving Mareph (who had been keeping an eye on her) puzzled and suspicious.
Some time after, Oraania turns up in the park again, an evening after overseeing the Keepers, and runs into him again. This time she doesn't spook and starts talking to him. His name is Arran Mrgan, a young musician who had recently moved to the neighbourhood, which is actually a somewhat trendy area noted for it's concentration of creative sorts - musicians, artists and the like. Arran moved there in hopes of advancing his musical career in the local clubs, but then ran into Orin Pride, who looks for the world just like a young woman he has dreamed about all his life. Those dreams however are not happy ones, they are violent nightmares that have haunted him all his life.
Oraania knows what it is - Arran is the reincarnation of Argchskin Mrrgr, the Demon Prince that had abducted her and kept her as his concubine. Only at least this time around Arran has not grown up in the violent Demon society so he is actually a reasonably decent person, something Oraania says proves Harliquin's theories true that the violent cruel nature of Demons is actually a corruption of their chaotic nature, not a natural part of it.
Arran, when he finds out the details of his past life, is rather horrified about it, and also afraid that Argchskin's nature may resurface. Oraania disagrees with this fear, believing that this is Arran's chance to be a different person to Argchskin.
In the various conversations between them Oraania reveals something to Arran she has never told her family: She knew of her capture by a Demon before it happened.
Why? Because Oraania Praadeccallin is a Visionary.
It is easy enough for the higher beings of Reality to see the futures of lower beings, and the further down from them, the easier they can see the futures of those lower beings. However the higher they try to see, the harder it is, and it is almost impossible to see their own future or that of another on their own level of Reality (with most never seeing anything and only rare visions like the one Briieth had being very rare indeed). A Keeper can see a human's future with no problems, but they cannot see their own future or that of another Keeper. If a Keeper or someone equal (High Demon or Nexus) gets involved in events happening on a lower level, such as Harliquin's frequent involvement with humans, it also obscures any attempts to see the future in and around that person's actions.
There is an exception this: Visionaries.
A Visionary is someone who can occasionally see the future of themselves or others of their own level, but usually their visions are not very clear.
Oraania, as a Visionary, foresaw her capture but did not see exactly who captured her, or why. She knew she would be tortured, but not exactly how. She foresaw someone important to the future would come out of this captivity, but presumed she would free a Keeper prisoner who would be important to the War.
And she foresaw that she would find her soulmate.
As it turned out, the Demon who captured her was not a random Demon soldier, but an obsessed Demon Prince. The torture she suffered was not just the normal torture of prisoners, but being kept as Argchskin's sextoy and repeatedly raped. The "important person" ended up being Mareph, who would go on to marry Khyilenna and father Mimnristriqua, who would help end the war. Mareph would, along with his daughter, also execute Argchskin after he kidnapped Oraania the second time.
And in what Oraania always considered the worst part of the whole thing, her soulmate turned out to be Argchskin himself. How could her rapist be her soulmate? That very question became one of the greater factors that drove her into her insane state.
As it turned out, she starts to see in Arran the possibility of her being able accept him as her soulmate now that he is human (although he is not quite a normal human - somewhere under the human surface the power of a lord of Reality still hides).
The Fall of the Lock
The result of the growing strength of Shscrringcima's attacks finally comes to a head - the seal breaks on the Door, despite both Briieth and Andrion's power trying to hold it in place.
The break destroys the Lock, and Andrion barely gets Briieth out, retreating to the townhouse (itself a similar construct to the Lock - a micro dimension with direct interfaces that go to a totally different exterior).
But the most puzzling part is that once she broke the seal Shscrringcima does not make an immediate attack on the rest of Reality but seems to vanish. The Family expect the worst of this - she is going to round up Demon forces for a new war.
Arran also feels the effect of the break, with his dreams taking on a new dimension of a commanding feminine figure calling him to fight for her. Orin looks into his mind and identifies the figure as Shscrringcima, which elicits an absolute denial from Arran to ever join her.
Orin persuades the rest of the Family to let Arran stay at the townhouse as it's dimensional nature can protect him from Shscrringcima hunting him down - if only for a short while at least.
As It Stands
Reality is on the brink of a new Demon War, Briieth is recovering from her self-imprisonment and having to relearn her control of her powers, which for so long have been syphoned into holding the seal on Shscrringcima's prison in place. Oraania, Tael and Andrion are starting to mobilise Keeper forces for the expected war, while Khyilenna and Harliquin are likewise mobilising the combined Army of the Flame.
Oraania's mental state is starting to heal now that she is finally facing down her own long-held secrets. The support of a soulmate who is now a far better person than in his past life as a Demon is helping greatly.
And a Rift-cat is quietly watching everything that is happening, with a particular interest in the Jester Fire Dancer.
ETA 22/09/11: Shscrringcima has made a first direct move - somehow she has sensed Arran's underlying nature and approached him, trying to get him back on her side again. Arran naturally (for how he is now) refused, and when Shscrringcima pushed, making mention of him being allowed to keep Oraania as his concubine again, he suddenly manifests full demon features as he takes a strike at her. Because she was surprised by this, Shscrringcima is forced to leave to recover from the wounds Arran was able to inflict.
This brings up it's fair share of issues in the family, particularly with Mareph, who probably held the biggest grudge against Argchskin in his part of the Family. However Oraania talks him down, stating that she trusts Arran as he is now, and that it should not be ignored exactly why his demon side manifested in this instance - he was defending Oraania.
Arran moves into the Townhouse, for his own protection, as Shscrringcima will not take this incident well, and will not stop trying to regain control over Argchskin again.
Arran starts having strange incidents where he finds himself inside his mindscape talking to Argchskin. Argchskin specifically states that Arran is the one in control and it will stay that way - he is merely a shadow of his past persona, manifesting only as Arran's vicious side. In fact, viewing things through Arran's mindset he approves of Arran's attitude towards Oraania, as with Arran's far more Keeper-like upbringing allows Argchskin to see how badly he treated Orin.
Arran can also sense that Mimnristriqua has the Chaos Crown - the Royal Demon Crown.
The nature of the Lock (where Briieth is), and the storage dimension:
The storage dimension is not actually located inside the Door, Harliquin found a way to have to widely separated dimensions linked so they seem like they are a part of each other.
Some time, way back in the time of the Keeper War, Harliquin found a smaller Rift fissure that led into a side passage of the Rift just off the main passage that leads to the main fissure into the Keeper Reality. She used her Riftfire ability to make the Rift-crystal in the side passage grow until it totally sealed off the passage from the main part of the Rift, leaving a small pocket of open space just outside the lesser fissure. It is inside that pocket that the storage dimension is located.
The Lock - the sub-dimension that contains Briieth's luxurious "gilded cage" - is literally located inside the Door, but is set up so that all interfaces with anything outside it translate to the storage dimension. This is done by two boxes of Rift-crystal that are linked directly to each other. One box is the outer box, one is the inner box. Anything seen from the outer box is seen from the inner, no matter where the inner is located. Stepping into the outer box instantly transports a person into the inner box and exiting the inner instantly places a person outside the outer.
The Lock is the inner box of it's pair while the outer is built into the walls of the North Wing of White Villa on Flame Island of the unnamed planet in an unnamed system in an unnamed galaxy in the storage dimension.
Harliquin has done this sort of trick in other places, most recently the townhouse she lives in on Tarlia's Earth (the Earth in the particular dimension Tarlia was born in). The inside box of the townhouse is actually located in the Rift pocket, while the other is retrofitted into the townhouse's walls. The interface with the outside is better than the Lock's, the Lock has crystal domes over any open spaces like the gardens and courtyards. The townhouse has an apparently open garden, balconies and open-able windows. Harliquin improved the technique of building her displaced havens over the eons.
Andrion
Another thing that has been inspired is the backstory of Briieth and Andrion, as well as current events involving him.
Andrion Herros Iys Quaadeccalln - second son of the head of the Quaadon family, part of the pacifist faction in the Keepers (who believe that if the Keepers just stopped fighting the Demons, then the Demons would also stop) - went against his family's pacifist beliefs and joined the Enforcers - the Keeper army. He did spectacularly well and when a member of the Crown Princess's personal guard had to retire, he did so well that he came to her personal notice. After Briieth - a very good fighter in her own right - challenged him to a fight and he managed to fight her to a draw, she decided to hire him to her guard.
Andrion however practically fell in love at first sight and did his absolute best to prove that Briieth's assessment of his abilities were not unfounded, fast becoming the most valued member of the Princess Guard. At the same time Briieth started to get to know this Quaadrien rebel and found him friendly, charming, supportive, and generally someone she clicks with very easily.
They grow close, becoming fighting partners and otherwise supporting each other - Andrion supporting Briieth in the face of the opinions of the Praadera Council, and in the face of her father's advancing illness, Briieth supporting Andrion in the face of negative opinions of those who are against the pacifists, negative opinions of the pacifist faction, and in particular the opinions of his family, who are unhappy about him getting so close to the royal family (who, as the leaders in the war, they view as the prime movers of the intolerable violence that the Keepers have sunk to - at least according to their dogma).
But despite their closeness and growing affection, they both hold off getting too serious, even in the face of frequent dreams and Oraania's needling, until a battle against Demon forces where Andrion is injured and poisoned with an almost always fatal Demon poison. Briieth ends up staying by Andrion's bed for days on end, refusing to leave, and eventually falls asleep with her head on his chest and having a dream of her standing before the Keeper host as their queen, a blood-spattered Oraania to her left, with an undefined dark figure and an undefined white figure behind her, and an undefined figure who is part black, part white and part rainbow behind them, and on her right is standing Andrion, as her consort, with their also undefined child standing on his right.
On waking, Briieth guesses this is a vision of a possible future, and while she doesn't know what to make of the blood-spattered Oraania and the figures behind her, the image of Andrion at her side... that makes her finally decide that she wants him as her own.
As it happens, Andrion wakes, somehow having beaten the poison, having also seen the same vision, and the two of them swear they will wed as soon as propriety and custom will allow.
There is a bit of further fuss when a young woman Andrion was betrothed to, before he was disinherited from the Quaadon family, tries to make a play to take him from Briieth, but her attempt is seen for what it is, an attempt by her family and the Quaadon family to repair the damage to the Quaadon reputation Andrion did with his rebellion and involvement with Briieth.
Ksalla
Another point: Just to put it down somewhere, despite my original thoughts years ago, Carhdrisian is not Andrion's son. (Though some amongst the Keepers believe he is.)
Ksalla Misiiryiccalliran originally held a position as Briieth's personal assistant. She and Briieth were quite close friends and after Briieth married Andrion Ksalla also became good friends with him.
Somewhere in the latter part of the War, a wandering Rift-being came into the Keeper Reality and ended up spending time living amongst the Keepers. During that time he got romantically involved with Ksalla, but his wanderlust took hold again and he ended up heading back into the Rift again. It wasn't until after he left that Ksalla found she was pregnant.
Carhdrisian was not born until after the end of the War, and after Briieth's self-imprisonment, so some of the more hard-nosed types thought that Ksalla no longer had any protection, until Andrion stepped in and declared her his official mistress, and her son his ward.
Since then their relationship has mostly been one of convenience and mutual support, with Ksalla mostly transferring her assistant function over to Andrion.
Modern Events
In most recent times, Harliquin has noted that Shscrringcima's regular assaults on the inside of the Door have gotten a lot stronger, so much so that Briieth had started to struggle to keep the Door from weakening. Because of this, for the first time since the end of the War, Harliquin shows Andrion the way into the Lock.
Andrion has been aware that Harliquin was the one who designed the Lock and helped set up the trap that would capture Shscrringcima, and as a result has had mixed feelings about Harliquin because of the resulting separation from his beloved wife, but has never directly asked Harliquin if she had access to Briieth for fear that his going to her would break the seal she powers.
In this case however Harliquin is the one who makes the move.
So for the next several weeks Andrion is basically commuting between the Keeper Citadel and the Lock, but even that is a strain on his mental state as he desperately needs uninterrupted time with Briieth.
As it happens, at one point when she is visiting White Villa, Oraania runs into him and sees into his mental state, recognising the signs of someone breaking since she is already broken herself. With the help of Harliquin's Rift-cat (who basically followed her home from the Rift and has been enigmatically hanging around since) and Harliquin and Khyilenna's Fire-dancing, she gains a pendant that can stabilise her mind for short periods of time, but she is advised that she needs "decompression" time, where she needs to let her insanity loose or the constant stabilisation will stress her mind too much and end up making her insanity a lot worse.
With this aid, Oraania summarily takes over Andrion's daily work and orders him back to the Lock to stop the gradual breakdown she is seeing in him.
In my head, the Oraania sim I have made is her in her royal persona - the face she presents to the Keepers after taking over from Andrion. She hasn't worn this persona since before her first abduction, and even then, the way she is now has it's signs of what she's been through - a wilder sense to her than existed before, side effect of both her insanity and also the influence of living so long with Khyilenna, Mareph and Harliquin, none of whom are pure Order, what with the Rift Fire being Chaos Magic at it's purest, and Mareph and Harliquin's demon sides.
There's also the amusing image of Orin facing down the hard-nosed faction in the Praadera Council that had once campaigned for her "merciful" execution - and facing them down armed with Knights of the Flame crystal swords (the blades are made out of Rift Crystal).
Arran Mrgan
Another situation arises back home, at the townhouse - or more accurately, the park down the road.
Oraania encounters a young man who for some reason, on her first meeting with him, scares her badly, leaving Mareph (who had been keeping an eye on her) puzzled and suspicious.
Some time after, Oraania turns up in the park again, an evening after overseeing the Keepers, and runs into him again. This time she doesn't spook and starts talking to him. His name is Arran Mrgan, a young musician who had recently moved to the neighbourhood, which is actually a somewhat trendy area noted for it's concentration of creative sorts - musicians, artists and the like. Arran moved there in hopes of advancing his musical career in the local clubs, but then ran into Orin Pride, who looks for the world just like a young woman he has dreamed about all his life. Those dreams however are not happy ones, they are violent nightmares that have haunted him all his life.
Oraania knows what it is - Arran is the reincarnation of Argchskin Mrrgr, the Demon Prince that had abducted her and kept her as his concubine. Only at least this time around Arran has not grown up in the violent Demon society so he is actually a reasonably decent person, something Oraania says proves Harliquin's theories true that the violent cruel nature of Demons is actually a corruption of their chaotic nature, not a natural part of it.
Arran, when he finds out the details of his past life, is rather horrified about it, and also afraid that Argchskin's nature may resurface. Oraania disagrees with this fear, believing that this is Arran's chance to be a different person to Argchskin.
In the various conversations between them Oraania reveals something to Arran she has never told her family: She knew of her capture by a Demon before it happened.
Why? Because Oraania Praadeccallin is a Visionary.
It is easy enough for the higher beings of Reality to see the futures of lower beings, and the further down from them, the easier they can see the futures of those lower beings. However the higher they try to see, the harder it is, and it is almost impossible to see their own future or that of another on their own level of Reality (with most never seeing anything and only rare visions like the one Briieth had being very rare indeed). A Keeper can see a human's future with no problems, but they cannot see their own future or that of another Keeper. If a Keeper or someone equal (High Demon or Nexus) gets involved in events happening on a lower level, such as Harliquin's frequent involvement with humans, it also obscures any attempts to see the future in and around that person's actions.
There is an exception this: Visionaries.
A Visionary is someone who can occasionally see the future of themselves or others of their own level, but usually their visions are not very clear.
Oraania, as a Visionary, foresaw her capture but did not see exactly who captured her, or why. She knew she would be tortured, but not exactly how. She foresaw someone important to the future would come out of this captivity, but presumed she would free a Keeper prisoner who would be important to the War.
And she foresaw that she would find her soulmate.
As it turned out, the Demon who captured her was not a random Demon soldier, but an obsessed Demon Prince. The torture she suffered was not just the normal torture of prisoners, but being kept as Argchskin's sextoy and repeatedly raped. The "important person" ended up being Mareph, who would go on to marry Khyilenna and father Mimnristriqua, who would help end the war. Mareph would, along with his daughter, also execute Argchskin after he kidnapped Oraania the second time.
And in what Oraania always considered the worst part of the whole thing, her soulmate turned out to be Argchskin himself. How could her rapist be her soulmate? That very question became one of the greater factors that drove her into her insane state.
As it turned out, she starts to see in Arran the possibility of her being able accept him as her soulmate now that he is human (although he is not quite a normal human - somewhere under the human surface the power of a lord of Reality still hides).
The Fall of the Lock
The result of the growing strength of Shscrringcima's attacks finally comes to a head - the seal breaks on the Door, despite both Briieth and Andrion's power trying to hold it in place.
The break destroys the Lock, and Andrion barely gets Briieth out, retreating to the townhouse (itself a similar construct to the Lock - a micro dimension with direct interfaces that go to a totally different exterior).
But the most puzzling part is that once she broke the seal Shscrringcima does not make an immediate attack on the rest of Reality but seems to vanish. The Family expect the worst of this - she is going to round up Demon forces for a new war.
Arran also feels the effect of the break, with his dreams taking on a new dimension of a commanding feminine figure calling him to fight for her. Orin looks into his mind and identifies the figure as Shscrringcima, which elicits an absolute denial from Arran to ever join her.
Orin persuades the rest of the Family to let Arran stay at the townhouse as it's dimensional nature can protect him from Shscrringcima hunting him down - if only for a short while at least.
As It Stands
Reality is on the brink of a new Demon War, Briieth is recovering from her self-imprisonment and having to relearn her control of her powers, which for so long have been syphoned into holding the seal on Shscrringcima's prison in place. Oraania, Tael and Andrion are starting to mobilise Keeper forces for the expected war, while Khyilenna and Harliquin are likewise mobilising the combined Army of the Flame.
Oraania's mental state is starting to heal now that she is finally facing down her own long-held secrets. The support of a soulmate who is now a far better person than in his past life as a Demon is helping greatly.
And a Rift-cat is quietly watching everything that is happening, with a particular interest in the Jester Fire Dancer.
ETA 22/09/11: Shscrringcima has made a first direct move - somehow she has sensed Arran's underlying nature and approached him, trying to get him back on her side again. Arran naturally (for how he is now) refused, and when Shscrringcima pushed, making mention of him being allowed to keep Oraania as his concubine again, he suddenly manifests full demon features as he takes a strike at her. Because she was surprised by this, Shscrringcima is forced to leave to recover from the wounds Arran was able to inflict.
This brings up it's fair share of issues in the family, particularly with Mareph, who probably held the biggest grudge against Argchskin in his part of the Family. However Oraania talks him down, stating that she trusts Arran as he is now, and that it should not be ignored exactly why his demon side manifested in this instance - he was defending Oraania.
Arran moves into the Townhouse, for his own protection, as Shscrringcima will not take this incident well, and will not stop trying to regain control over Argchskin again.
Arran starts having strange incidents where he finds himself inside his mindscape talking to Argchskin. Argchskin specifically states that Arran is the one in control and it will stay that way - he is merely a shadow of his past persona, manifesting only as Arran's vicious side. In fact, viewing things through Arran's mindset he approves of Arran's attitude towards Oraania, as with Arran's far more Keeper-like upbringing allows Argchskin to see how badly he treated Orin.
Arran can also sense that Mimnristriqua has the Chaos Crown - the Royal Demon Crown.
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