Riots in the streets [memory, nonlucid, mature]

[Goku]

Saun 16 720

The afternoon in the city square was a peaceful one, relatively speaking. The chatter was calm and quiet which was a nice change of pace for once. Just the other day the mayor of the city had declared a new stance on crime and drains on society. There was to be a zero tolerance policy especially in the market districts. It was a policy designed to help the struggling economy which had immediate ramifications. So many had been arrested in just a few days and many more kicked from the city for being nuisances. Nuisances in this context meant anyone that looked poor and couldn’t prove that they had income.

One might think that such a hard line against the poor would be incredibly ill received. It was, outside the city. People protested at the walls day and night but that was far from the city square. Here everything was picture perfect, up until the clock struck twelve and a dozen bells were heard in slow succession.

-

The bells were the cue for the rebellion to begin. Anyone with their ear to the ground would be able to hear the rushing and sloshing water beneath the roads and all in an instant people started clamoring out of the tunnels under the city. The once peaceful city square was transformed into a battlefield in the span of five minutes. It didn’t take much longer than that for banners to be raised and logos to be painted showing just who was behind this mastermind of an invasion. It was a gang, a well funded gang at that who’d seen this as a perfect opportunity to seize control of the city. Before they’d never had the numbers but now they had the entire impoverished population on their side.

A different variety of bells began to ring across the city. These were warning bells that all clashed with each other making it near impossible to tell exactly what was being warned. All that was clear was that there was pandemonium.

The upper class fled but most of them perished. Only those in-the-know knew what to do in this level of crisis – go to the politician’s bunker. There they could group up and weather out any storm, any riot. They could come up with a plan and hopefully take back the city.

-

The mayor had been enjoying a nice relaxing lunch with her husband and son in a courtyard when the bells began to ring. The mayor looked in horror as her bodyguards tackled a waiter who’d just slit the throat of her child and managed to stab her husband in the chest in a near instant. Had the mayor not made it standard procedure to sit with a loaded crossbow pistol she would’ve been dead meat as well. Luckily for her, the waiter after her life had been met with a bolt to the face.

“Burn them all!” she cried out to her guard force who had no idea how to carry out her order but they made do. It wasn’t their job to ask questions, only to relay orders to the people that did.

“Burn them all she said?” asked a curious scientist in his lab. He had planned on getting the hell out of dodge instead of sticking around but this was the perfect chance to test the weapon he’d been building. The weapon that the mayor only knew about by chance. A thin smile crept across his maniacal face as he set down his bags and rushed off to his laboratory. He had just the solution for dealing with a population that wasn’t long for this world. It had something to do with fire and a new energy source he was experimenting with that he didn’t fully understand yet. He just knew that it could create an unlimited quantity of fire if his tests were anything to go off.

-

Meanwhile the riot grew in intensity. There was no more city square. In its place was a massive pillar of fire that rose high into the sky and bellowed black smoke into the atmosphere. The mayor’s residence and city council offices had both been taken as those were the places of power, or so the rioters thought. They found them all deserted. The fodder assumed they’d won due to the lack of resistance. Yes there had been guards here and there to contend with, blockades and the like. However they were severely undermanned almost as if by design.

By nightfall the city was quiet again. The rioters had taken the main government buildings, the business districts, and even some of the residential districts. Not that this counted for much. The fires had burned most everything of value and what remained had been destroyed out of anger. It was not the coup that the gang had intended but they were sitting on a mountain of funds at the treasury which they hoped would prove useful in rebuilding the city to their liking. Now they could finally relax and enjoy their victory. The only ones that worried were the higher ups at the gang who had their best men fanning out into the city looking for where the politicians were hiding. They knew they could never claim victory until their enemies were in chains or dead.

Though the battle in the city died down the battle outside the city raged on. The walls were much too cumbersome to climb easily. The rabid rioters tried everything in their power to get through but it was a fool’s errand. One guard could easily sit free from harm and simply fire arrows into the crowd. Multiply that by the hundreds that were stationed atop the walls and that meant that nobody was going to get in anytime soon. Eventually, maybe, but it was a battle that wouldn’t be won until their ammunition was depleted. Judging by how hard the fletchers were working they’d be able to last days. That was probably why the gang decided to strike from the inside first!

-

“Let it rain fire,” said the Mayor. She and the majority of her personal guard were couped up in the spacious laboratory at the edge of the city. It was the last place that anyone would think to look for her and it was surprisingly large enough to fit her and the people she cared about under one roof. She’d never regret all that science funding she shoveled money into even if this mad scientist had misappropriated funds to create this “weapon.”

“Yes Madam, as you instruct I shall obey,” the scientist said with vibrato in his voice. He pulled an incredibly large lever with the help of two of his assistants and a strange sound was heard. It was as if the sound of a flickering flame echoed high above their heads. Through the glass skylight those sheltering in the lab could see a cannon that rapid fired off balls of flame into the distance. The scientist had a series of telescopes in front of his face and worked the controls with his hands. He carefully aimed at the rioters outside the walls who were trying to get in and then turned his attention to the city center area where he torched the gang members where they though they were safe.

“The work is done Madam,” the scientist announced. He continued to look through his telescopes and marveled at the sheer quantity of bodies that had been burned. The weapon had worked better than he could have ever hoped. His aim had been a bit off here and there but he wouldn’t beat himself up about killing an extra few thousand innocent civilians.

“Excellent. I take that to mean the rebels have been quashed in a way that they couldn’t try this again even if they wanted to?” The mayor was shaken by the sheer power that she had witnessed over the course of the past half hour. To think that the entire city could be leveled in the span of half a day if the scientist so desired. He had also been ready to use the weapon at a moment’s notice. Something wasn’t quite right but nobody dared question his preparedness.

“As good as they will ever be. I wish I could offer you guidance but I’m afraid the matters of politics and policing are not my strong suits. I worry only for our control of the city. It won’t be long before word gets out that the mayor killed so many.” He laughed crazily and took his leave.

“Let them come,” the mayor muttered as she and her possie left the lab. So long as she could keep the mad scientist in check she could repel any threats. To think that this was just one of many weapons at the scientist’s disposal. She just had to hope she could keep him on her side but that was a worry for another time. She was sure he would be happy to ally with her so long as he could keep using his death weapons.

[Pig Boy]

Heya Goku,

So I may have goofed on a prior thread of yours by reviewing it without noticing that you were setting it an arc ago. Unfortunately, according to the rules for memory threasd Magic skills (which includes Dreamwalking for reasons that should be obvious) cannot be built up in memory threads. The way that Dreamwalking currently works is that every dream counts toward advancement in that skill, whether you are a dreamwalker or not. So you must change the date of the thread to the current cycle for it to be gradable.

That's not the only issue with this thread, however. While the last thread could've conceivably taken place in a place that resembles one of the cities of Idalos and had a clear protagonist, this one does not resemble the setting, nor does it focus on your PC (or a representation of your PC via a clear point of view character) in any way. Even Non-Lucid dreams need to do one of those two things.

If you could fix those issues, and contact me that you've done so, I will then review this thread.