(no subject)

[tvknpc]

[You are asleep.]

[Whether you turned in for the night, decided to take a short nap, or maybe just dozed off for a minute or two, you are sleeping. Often paired with sleep is dreaming, and that is just what you do. For it is in a dream you arrive on your own here, to a tall and narrow room of deep blue--though it is spacious and somewhat furnished, it appears to move upwards like an elevator. Piano music and an accompanying woman can be heard as well, quietly and with no visible source.

Before you there is a chair facing a table--sit down, make yourself comfortable. A long-nosed man in a suit sits opposite you, leaning on the table with his hands folded. Beside him holding a book stands a too-pale woman in blue with yellow eyes and silver-white hair.]



( Welcome to the Velvet Room. )

[Note: Consider the World Arcana event to have officially begun! I know, it's about an hour earlier than I said it would be--as it happens, I am mildly concerned I won't be awake at midnight. Better safe than sorry~]

0011000100110110 (Video)

[want_a_vacation]

*The phone clicks on to show a groggy looking Allen, seemingly having just woken up from falling asleep at his desk. It also catches him in the middle of taking a drink of coffee, but he sets it down before he speaks.*

Did anyone else just have an odd dream? About two people in some place called the Velvet Ro-

*He's abruptly cut off as the scene shifts, changing to something entirely different.*

( Cut for lengthy prose. )

*The scene leaves Allen wide eyed, before he stands up shouting.*

What the hell was that?!

*The scene shifts again, this time more high tech room. When it cuts back, Allen still looks shaken but less shocked.*

This must be what they meant by-

*And once again he's cut off, in favor of the darkest scene yet. When it fades, Allen has gone from shaken to pale and leaning over his desk, arms out to support his weight.*

I...I think I need to sit down.

*And just like that, he ends the feed.*

(Warning: those last two videos have some graphic electrocutions in them.)

⚔ 029; [video]

[croibhristeoir]

[In the afternoon, Diarmuid put a call out on the network--running the bookstore was getting off to a rocky start, but he'd managed to get a break at least.]

...This may sound like an odd question, but did anyone else have a strange dream last night? I'm not sure it was like anything else that I've eve--

[Static.]

[The next thing shown was a video of a strangely dreamlike quality, slightly faded and seeming not entirely connected with reality. Images came in a few quick flashes as if a channel keeps being changed in search of something--first is shown a child with bright golden eyes and a brighter smile. He was almost always at his father's side--or hiding behind him, when it came to seeing an average group of women passing by.]

[It was unmistakably Diarmuid, more so when the view switched to the first knight of the Fianna as a teenager, playfully grinning as he sparred against a second knight with flaming red hair. Likely the most notable thing about that last moment was how heartfelt and truly happy his smile was--while he smiled often, it was almost always with some tinge of broken sadness, something he'd never had in those days.]

[Static again, for only a second or two.]

[When that ended, there were no quick flashes--next came images far clearer. This was the story of a knight who never wanted fame, least of all in the way he received it. Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, the unwilling thief of his lord's fiancee that paid for his crime as only a traitor could.]

[There was no static after that, but the video seemed to cut out for a moment; if one listened carefully, they would have been able to hear a possibly familiar voice.]

['In the stories of legend, you are fairly well known for womanizing and adultery. Were you not intending to seduce your master’s fiancée?']

[It had been too much to bear. A lesser knight would have snapped under the strain long before even becoming a Servant. Diarmuid...he was different. He didn't mind accepting others' hatred, as long as he kept to what he believed was the right and honorable thing. But Kayneth...it had been too much. Being so hated and mistrusted, it made him sick and tore at his heart until there was nothing left.]

[That quiet and shy child with the bright smile, that playful teenager surrounded by his friends and fellow knights, that compassionate and self-sacrificing knight...broke.]

['Unforgivable...I'll never forgive you! You dead men who are slaved by fame, you who desecrated the glory of knights... Let my blood stain that dream! I curse the Holy Grail! I curse that your wishes will become disasters!']

[This was a man who had never known hatred, never felt rage until that one moment. No matter how unhappy his circumstances had been in life, he met it all with calm acceptance. And yet over the course of a single Holy Grail War, that legendary calm and patience had been brought down to nothing, crushed under the heel of an equally broken magus.]

[When the illusions broke, when reality cut back into the impromptu recollection of that which he wished he could forget, the video showed Diarmuid looking deathly pale and utterly horrified.]

[Without another word, he cut off the video and sank into the nearest chair with his face in his hands.]