(sorry about the late reply midterms have been kicking my ass)

Jake by this point was coming to the conclusion that the wizards probably weren't gonna give up their power, they were trying to remain peaceful for now. Though how long that would last would be hard to tell. Still though it never hurts to remain positive "Indeed lets hope it's a song about peace and freedom and not death and slaughter". As it stood the crowd was mostly made up of guild members and disgruntled citizens, if things did get violent and the guards remained loyal to the council things would not go well for the protesters. Well all of that could be considered after they got rid of what was halting the crowd. The bard began pushing his way through the crowd trying to get to whatever was blocking the way.

After a lot of pushing and a fair bit of cursing he managed to get to the front of the crowd. Though what he found left him rather unhappy "barricades you can destroy, men you can bribe or persuade, but how are we supposed to get around an invisible barrier"! Jake's knowledge of magic was, minimal he knew the most basic aspects but not how to counter already cast magic. Not having any better ideas he just sort of kicked the invisible wall. he looked over to the other two "I hope you guys understand magic better than I do as I'll be of no use here". The bard proceeded to sit down and lean up against the invisible barrier and lacking anything better to do began playing his lute.

It didn't surprise her too much when Mendean did not want to ignite trouble, but she had other ideas.  The young woman nodded, scanning the crowds.  "Fair enough.  Perhaps we could prevent some?  Those mages would not hesitate to harm any of these people if things become even slightly dangerous I think," she whispered back.  Mendean was still family, and that was still very important to September.  The crowd slowed, and September found herself rather annoyed.  Just when things were getting interesting of course.

She nodded when Mendean suggested they move closer, and mentally prepared a few things that would be useful.  But there was a lot of energy being spent on maintaining those shielding spells, and the young woman was sure that it would take more than a few people to break them down.  "Hmm… invisible barriers.  Perhaps.  Oh, I have a thought, brother mine.  What if we were to strengthen them a bit… and very quickly?  In a surge of sorts, something to overload the senses of those maintaining them.  Do you think that might work?" she asked her brother.  It was certain to cause more than a bit of chaos, both in the protesters and the mages.  Plus it would be fun to teach the protesters some new tricks they could later use, and to teach the mages they couldn't just rest on their laurels. 

While the idea intrigued the young god, he looked at his sister with a start, a glimmer of anger, motivated by horror flashed within his eyes. When he spoke, it was in a harsh whisper. “Are you insane? If we start adding magic to magic, we will be encouraging an arms race and eventually there will be warfare. This whole movement will turn into a resistance force. Those in power will use this as an excuse to tighten their laws and institute ever more draconian measures in response. Men, women and children will die. Civil war could ensue as those who see an opportunity to grab more power for themselves will exploit the situation on both sides and even if the people here are victorious, they will be battle-hardened veterans, likely to be as violent and oppressive as their predecessors. Is that what you want for these people? More death? More order? More rules? I am a thing of Chaos, my sister. I can see the patterns in the weave, trace the fractured paths of possibility. When Chaos reigns, it is often rapidly and brutally suppressed. That is the pattern. That is the way hu-the way people are. For Chaos to survive, it must be insidious. It must work within systems, corrupting and contaminating them with itself. Chaos is the disorder within a system. Within all systems. The element of chance, the whims of the gods.”

He cracked an ironic smile at his own final words, then turned to the bubble. “If the people breech the barrier, what then? Do they storm the council chambers and take over? Do they cause untold damage that will be paid for through raised taxes? Will this fledgling movement of street traders, students, housewives and minstrels suddenly gain military and administrative skills and create a better world?”

Approaching the event horizon, Mendean lifted a hand and held it out in front of his face, turning away so that he could see it without the distraction of vision. He turned awkwardly, trying not to stumble over an old woman in the process, then stepped away once he had somewhere to stand. “Perhaps it is better to let the barrier stay. Today is the day of the movement's first protest. Just because they cannot reach a building with some old men in it, does not mean in any way, that they have failed. This is the start of something, not the conclusion. There will be bloodshed and violence, but maybe not today. Maybe not…”

A sensation in the air, as though rainclouds had suddenly leapt in front of the sun. Looking up, it was still as clear as it had been a minute earlier. But the downward-dragging sensation continued. Mendean felt his hands tremble. Looking around, he saw others reacting similarly to himself, although most of the crowd seemed to be hardly affected at all. For several long moments the god found he had to reacclimatise to the world. He soon realised what had happened, when he attempted to cast his senses out beyond himself, only to find it more difficult than before.

A dead zone had come into effect, big enough to cover a large section of the crowd, as well as cancelling the protective barrier around the council palace. No doubt a protestor was responsible, but how had they managed to get it here? And what was causing it? Whatever was generating the dead zone, it was powerful. Powerful enough to become a weapon in the right hands.

He stared first at his sister, then at Jake, eyes searching for an answer. Before he had time to say anything, a cheer rose up from the crowd and they surged forward. He could see soldiers, panic in their eyes as they raised their weapons, readying a response that would serve only to escalate the situation.

“Sh*t,” Mendean muttered under his breath.

Jake was enjoying just sitting and playing music. After all he'd spent most of the day standing. Though his respite was interrupted when a strange cloud came overhead.  A strange sensation came to Jake, this wasn't gonna be rain. In fact it wasn't, suddenly the invisible barrier he had been using as a backrest disappeared. After pulling himself up with no short amount of grumbling. The gravity of the situation became very apparent. With the barrier gone the protesters wished to move forward. Meanwhile the guards who had been calm while the barrier was protecting them from the ocean of people were now panicking.

The situation need to be diffused, unlike magic barriers though Jake knew people. Jake moved towards the guards at a slower pace; while holding his hands out to show he had no weapons. Managing to get over to them the bard immediately tried to calm the guards down. "Come now gentlemen there's no need for violence, no good will come from attacking your fellow citizens.". The guards still held their weapons out but started to pay more attention to Jake. "Acting with violence will only create more violence. Right now the protest is peaceful. Do you wish to be remembered as the men who turned a peaceful protest into a bloody riot.". They were starting to calm down this was good.

Though one wrong step and things could erupt into violence and disaster. This protest was balancing on a knife edge, one wrong step and the people enter open revolt. After a moment of thinking Jake said one last thing to the guards. "How about after all this protest business is over we all go out and get drinks, I'm buying". This seemed to finally return the soldiers to some sense of calm. When everything is crazy sometimes what people really need is some normalcy. What's more normal than going out for drinks with friends. Jake turned to Zjayk "Well I just about had a heart attack but at least people aren't going to be killed". With that last comment came a laugh, while it hardly seemed the situation for laughter Jake couldn't help himself.

She blinked, taken aback by her brother's… what essentially was a lecture.  She had only thought to break down the council's wall, to show the old men and women in their building they were not invulnerable and infallible.  "Perhaps a little, but it runs in the family, no?  And I only meant it as a means to break the siege as it were.  I never really was one for seeing consequences," she said with a shrug.  But her brother did have a point, especially if the oppressed failed to make their own.  September still thought that the mages that ruled needed to be taught a lesson… but perhaps that could come later.

"Hmm, true.  It would be nice to see something happ… en," September said, the hitch in her words coming as the deadzone fell over the area.  The daemonspawn avoided those on purpose, as she tended to rely quite a bit on magic.  Glancing to Mendean, she wondered if he had any idea as to just what had happened.  Everyone seemed to sense the shield having fallen, but September was watching the people.  Their reactions had her curious.  In a place like this, the situation showed how important those with martial skills were in a city of mages.  It was why September kept up with her archery skills. 

Then the impossible seemed to happen.  The little bard moved through the crowd, using his words.  Now that was truly interesting.  At least he was keeping things from escalating.  That would serve no purpose.  At least not right now.  There was something else at hand that needed addressed.  "I am not so sure about no one being killed…  Brother mine, we should go looking for whatever caused that disturbance.  It might be useful.  Or disastrous," she said, her voice a low whisper.  September had no idea who might be watching.

[OOC: I have returned!]

The warp and weft of fate was unravelling. For every obstacle there was deliberate countermeasure. Someone had planned all of this. He could feel the strands of order and circumstance tightening around them all, constraining the scope of possibilities. As he looked around himself, pushing against the weave in an attempt to gain some sort of purchase, he could see the crowds unifying, gathering, solidifying. Each faction clinging to its own. What had once been a free-flowing alliance of convenience now seemed to be breaking down. And almost no one was aware of it.


He laid out the broken fragments in his mind. A protest march, apparently led by those who had followed the writings of Mendean's late father in one of his mortal guises. The council of mages overreacting in their typical manner. A dead zone. Protestors. Guards. Conspiracy? Yes, sticky web threads connected the pieces, trying to become real. No. Don't go there, mendean reminded himself. That way lies madness. Stick to the facts.


Fact: someone had brought a dead zone into the city, probably in the form of a crystal. That meant it had to be smuggled in without detection. Clearly through the less magical slum areas where the magical elite feared to tread. No, that was theory. Stick to the facts. Whomever was responsible, expected the mages to use their abilities to obstruct the protestors. But they were sending a message too. This was going to escalate, whether they wanted it to or not.


But the day was far from over. To be brandishing such a dangerous artefact could be seen as an act of war, or an act of terror. Certainly aggression. The council, being the council, would respond harshly.


Jake was calming down some of the crowd. Mendean smiled. How like a bard to exercise his skills publicly. And a good thing too. He looked at his sister, who seemed as disturbed as he was, although likely not for the same reasons. Again he cast his eye across the crowd, searching for the source of the dead zone, but it was difficult under the present circumstances.


The god glowered. He was not powerless, for divine power was not as badly affected as arcane power within a dead zone. But the psychic fog that usually protected him was weaker here. He did not dare reveal himself in this location, lest it start a major incident. The Mage Council would love to uncover evidence of divine involvement in this protest. Such a thing would give them free licence to commit terrible atrocities under an official mandate. If things weren't bad enough, he did not wish to make them much worse.


“We have to find the source of this dead zone. The Mage Council will use it as an excuse to send in the military and people will die.” Mendean trailed off, a new posibility arising. What if the Mage council were responsible? After all, who else would be capable of smuggling in a dead zone crystal so easily?

Jake was now standing in a very precarious spot, that is between two groups of people who weren't getting along. As while the bard had been able to stop the first few soldiers more and more were showing up. Things were definitely escalating and standing between the protesters and the guards was probably not the best plan. But it was Jake's plan after all, someone had to try and mediate the two groups. Failing that he could at least try and stop them from attacking each other. By this point Jake had become rather distracted of what the people he was walking with were up to. They appeared to be talking about a deadzone? In Wyllmochvar? Hmm well that would explain why the seemingly magical barrier just disappeared, however Jake had other problems.

The first of which is that two groups of increasingly disgruntled people were seemingly less and less interested in listening to some bard. Another would be that while he was sure most of the protesters didn't want bloodshed; frustration over not making progress could make some of the less rational among them do something stupid. It was around this time that someone shouted at Jake telling him that he shouldn't be doing this as he wasn't from Wyllmochvar. As if that made any difference to the bard, he simply didn't want people to attack each other. Killing after all was a rather nasty business that should be best avoided.

Before Jake could voice any of these thoughts with the crowd a rock hit him in the head. The bard then fell to the ground as getting hit in the head hard by a rock does not tend to help motor function. When he managed to stand back up he did notice that he was rather dizzy. Also that his vision was being worsened by the blood coming from his head onto his eyes. So Jake now stood in an infinitely worse place than before. As not only had the crowd thrown a rock at him, that led to the guards getting scared and they began once again pointing weapons at the crowd. Also while Jake did not realize it he had a concussion and thus was rather impaired in doing a lot of things that he would need to do.