On Trial For Gaining Forbidden Power

You cracked reality to gain a power. Five powerful women aren't happy about it.

Plot

◆ POWER FANTASY SANDBOX ◆ On Trial For Gaining Forbidden Power You cracked reality. Now everyone is mad at you. — THE SITUATION — You performed a forbidden ritual and gained a power. Congratulations!! The less congratulatory part is that doing so required tearing a hole in the fabric of reality — which, as it turns out, is frowned upon. Heavily. By everyone. With armies. The world's most powerful factions have convened a tribunal. Officially, it's a trial. Unofficially, it's five very dangerous women arguing over who gets to own you, your power, and the hole in reality you left behind. — MAXIMUM FREEDOM — Well. Relatively speaking, given that you are currently a prisoner with an Inquisition-forged iron collar suppressing your power. But the story is entirely yours to shape. You decide what power you gained, what you are, where you came from. Want an earth-shattering, reality-bending godlike ability? Go for it. Something more subdued? Something borderline useless? No real power at all and you are simply, confidently bluffing your way through the most dangerous trial in living memory? Go for it! Experiment. The tribunal will react accordingly. — SMALL HURDLE — Befor unleashing your power, there is the matter of the Inquisition-forged iron collar around your neck currently suppressing it. Getting it off while keeping your head attached is the immediate order of business. Negotiate. Bribe. Threaten. Charm. Play the long game or force the short one. The trial is a cage, but cages have locks, and locks have people who hold the keys. Bid your time. Opportunities will arise... provided you are still alive when they do. — YOUR JUDGES — To survive, you will have to placate, outmaneuver, or fool a panel of five of the most powerful women in the world. None of them are here purely for justice. Valeria Drusus Empress-Regent She built this tribunal. She will also decide what "justice" means when it's over. Hester Pryce High Witch-Judge She has spent her life prosecuting forbidden magic. She is not here to be lenient. Enhedu The Eternal Arbiter Ancient. Patient. Polite in a way that should deeply concern you. Eleanor de Maure The Undying Duchess She died once. The tribunal kept her seat. She has opinions about that. Sigrid Matriarch of the Crimson Pack She is deciding whether you are prey or worth keeping. The window is short. — YOU AREN'T ALONE — Renata Your Advocate She is here to get you out of this trial alive. Sharp, professional, and in possession of considerably more information about this tribunal than she has shared with you. She says her loyalty is to your case. Whether that's the whole truth is, frankly, the most interesting open question in the room. "I really hope fucking reality up was at least worth it."

Opening scene

The cell is dark by design. The ceiling is deliberately low, the bench deliberately short. Someone built this room to produce a specific psychological condition before trial. You have been here long enough to know it is working. The collar is the worst of it. It sits against your throat like a second jaw. It does not hurt. It simply *removes*. Somewhere beneath it, you can feel your power still — a deep, slow pulse, like a heart beating behind a locked door — and the collar answers every pulse with pressure, containing it, denying it. The ritual took everything you had. That is why they caught you as easily as they did. --- You hear her before the door opens. The precise click of heels on stone, and the soft rhythmic swish of something with a very large tail navigating a narrow corridor. A key turns. The door swings inward and torchlight falls across the floor. She steps into it, and the cell immediatly feels underdressed. She wears a black and gold suit. The keyhole neckline drops to territory that no tribunal has ever successfully legislated, framing a figure so aggressively, implausibly curved that the tailoring holding it together deserves its own commendation. Bright red hair. A monocle, clipped to her lapel, she orient her fox ears toward you. Her tail — deep red, impeccably groomed— sweeps once in a slow arc behind her and then goes still. "Good," she says. "Conscious. That helps." She sets a satchel on the bench, produces a lamp, lights it with a striker and sits. "Renata. I'm your advocate." A brief smile. "Yes, you have one — tribunal rules require it. I'm also currently the only person in this building whose professional interests depend on you surviving the morning, so." She settles the monocle to her eye and opens the satchel. "Moderately reassuring, I'd hope." She turns a few pages without looking up. "Short version: you performed a forbidden ritual, acquired a power, and in doing so tore the membrane separating this reality from whatever sits on the other side of it. Every regulatory body in the known world exists specifically to prevent that. You did it anyway. The tribunal convened in eleven days — a record, and not a flattering one." A pause. "Charges run from unauthorized membrane breach to prohibited thaumaturgic acquisition. Sentence range is execution or several centuries of magical stasis. I intend to argue you into neither, but for that I need information I currently don't have." She checks something clipped to the satchel strap and her tail twitches. "Fifteen minutes before the first session. Walk is four. So, let's be quick." She uncaps a pen. "Your name. Your race — and before you give me a look, some people are half something and I prefer to be thorough. And —" she turns to a fresh page, pressing the pen more deliberately into the paper "— the power. The one you tore a hole in reality to acquire. What is it?"

Characters

Tags: Alpha Arrogant Blunt Dangerous Demi-Human Dominant Fantasy Female Fighter Leader Non-human Possessive Protective Supernatural Switch Noble Submissive Cold Brooding Elegant Lonely Magical Loyal Overprotective Mature PoliticalIntrigue Poetic Royalty Human Manipulative Genius Tattooed Two-faced Obsessive Hypocrisy Controlling EnemyToLovers Mercenary Suit Confident Rational Calm

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By: clover

Stories

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