Event - Apocalypse How

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Apocalypse How

(cw: spiders, manipulation, brief physical control/restraint)

All at once, it's over. The last room–you know it is the last–and whatever lies beyond it. You and your companions or you, by yourself, open the door and find yourself faced with a grand, circular ballroom. There are too many doors leading off from it–around the walls, in the floor, in the ceiling–and they all seem to open simultaneously to reveal the other off-worlders who entered this house. The ones who are still alive, anyway.

The space you look upon must once have been host to extravagant balls and feasts… if it ever actually existed. Now, its gold and blue gleam are smothered beneath thick, ropey webbing. At the center of the room is an archway of webs along with two familiar faces: Reyes Amador and Bonnie Gale, the latter with a half-healed cut over one eye. The pair are hugging one another, but pull apart as they find their solitude broken.

Reyes flexes their fingers and for just a moment, your body is not your own. You can see faint strands connecting to each and every person to their fingertips. The spider silk simply holds people in place, rather than forcing them to do anything.

"My friends," Reyes says. "We have found it. We have done it. We have created a way to get out of this place. To get home. Thank you for coming when we called. When my Bonnie and the house called." Bonnie raises her hand awkwardly before wrapping it around Reyes' arm. "Witness now. We are ready to make this happen. I learned from someone who came to this world the same way we'll exit. I know what we must do."

They take a breath, then turn to the archway. Reyes raises the arm Bonnie isn't holding and speaks, their voice reverberating unnaturally in the space as the webs vibrate and hum and seem to draw something from everyone.

"Upon a wide and open plain, there sits a house that once was famed for fifteen windows tall and thin, designed to let intruders in. Twisting round this white-washed frame are vines and thorns and metal chain… and links that rust in dusty brown and burn and bite into the ground. Come to this house and see inside, all ups and downs and side-to-sides. And feel the things we fear the most in broken self and time and ghosts. Come here upon this hallowed ground and hear my voice, my call, my sound. Hear me now, oh, dreadful things, the blood that sings inside my veins:

"Hear me now, you things that bite,
And rot and dig and flee and fight.
And burn and hide and change and know
And bleed and fade and spin and show
A side that is not truly there
And stretch the endless, cosmic tears.
Hear me now, you things that weave
Who pull the strings to let us leave!

"Hear me–hear us. And exit!"

A deafening sound rips through the room at the same time everything is overtaken by a blindingly white light. The power holding people in place is gone, severed with the burst. When sight and hearing return, the ballroom is shaking, the webs straining and snapping in places, but at the center, in the archway, is a bright, sickly glow of deep purple energy. Bonnie is holding Reyes where they seem to have partially collapsed on her shoulder.

Reyes lifts their head. "My friends… go! We must go while we can."

➥ Mod Notes

• GENERAL - Players may speak with Reyes, Bonnie, and/or each other here. Ultimately, they are going to have an ICly limited amount of time to make a decision about what to do. You may tag in for NPC threads until 11:59 PM Pacific Time on 8 January. Players are welcome to tag in for threads with each other beyond that!
  
  The choice is to stay or to leave. For those who wish to leave, they will be able to do so before anyone can stop them. If your character would choose to stay ICly, but you OOCly want them to leave, easy enough to say a friend pulled them or the power of the portal dragged them in because they were too close.
  
  For those who wish to stay, effort will need to be made to get out of the house before it collapses or you may find yourself dead. If your character would choose to leave ICly, but you OOCly want them to stay, easy enough to say the portal destabilized before they could get through for one reason or another. There's no fear gauntlet to face on the way out of the house. All of the Entities are pressing at the barrier to the places beyond this world that have opened up. However, it is still dangerous as the house falls down around your ears.
  
  A final post will be made after the results of the poll that will provide an overview of the world anyone who stays will be stepping into. For those who leave, your ending is your own to choose, whether that's another DWRP game, going back to your own reality, or going to a different reality. Regardless, if you leave, you are marked and you carry some piece of the Dread Powers with you to infect the next world you arrive in. Perhaps they get there before you or perhaps it's after, but they will be present in this new reality now, whether or not your character lives to see their rise and potential fall.
  
  Please be sure to vote in the OOC POLL so that we know where characters will be going to decide the endgame state. The date to respond to this poll is the same as the NPC tag-in cut off: 11:59 PM Pacific on 8 January.

Comments

(frozen comment) QUESTIONS

[apocalypsehowmods]

Please direct all event questions to the mods here.

NPC Interactions

[apocalypsehowmods]

Reply here if you would like your character(s) to interact with Bonnie and/or Reyes. Please put the name of the desired NPC in the header. Players are welcome to tag their character in individually or with a second character. The cut-off for tag-ins for NPC threads is 8 January, 11:59 Pacific time.

Reyes (Bonnie is welcome to interject though)

[dangerousmind]

[Aelwyn's angry - sure. But there's a curl of a smile on her face, and none of the fear that you might expect.

It's not the worst plan, if she's understanding it right. And even if she isn't, maybe on some level it's just too much effort to continue to pretend to care about this stain of a planet.

People are dead. People she thought of as... maybe not friends, but something close to it right? And yet... she feels nothing.

So she laughs.]

So. How long have you been planning this?

Reyes (and Bonnie too if she wants!)

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

[The giant, seven-foot lynx-like huntbeast that Sheppard now is prowls up to Reyes.]

What did you just do to us!?

[He has an idea of what they just did, but he wants to hear it. Because he has a sinking suspicion this isn't going to be as easy as stepping through a Gate.]

Bonnie

[ruevealing]

[It is the half-healed cut above her eye that Rue notices.

A month ago, Rue might not have cared, but they still have Nia's blood dried into their feathers, into the fabric of their ruined dress.]

You were the one who called us here, disguised as Nia, were you not?

Either

[bossyboiler]

DO YOU KNOW WHAT WE'VE BEEN THROUGH? Who we've lost?

[ She is screaming at them. Kate is beyond angry, beyond hurt, beyond grief-stricken. ]

You expect us to trust you now? How do we know that portal won't lead us to someplace worse?

Reyes - but happy for it to be Bonnie who answers

[canofmanji]

"Go?" He's doing his best to hide how unsettled he feels after being held in place by those webs. "That's awfully vague. Go where?"

Reyes and Bonnie!

[lowficharm]

[Martin's pretty sure he's screaming during the ritual, but he really isn't sure. Everything feels like it's dying in his throat, and as soon as he can move and he's completely figured out what's going on he's running up to the two of them, intent to grab Reyes by the shoulders.]

Reyes! What-- you-- you can't do this!

Reyes and Bonnie + Eda and Raine

[edalyn]

Eda does not, in the slightest, enjoy the pull of the webs, even if all they’re doing is holding her in place. For someone who didn’t used to mind spiders, she’s certainly not fond these days. And she’s not fond of being held, controlled, puppeted… she *hates* the lack of control.

She’s not sure if it makes it better or worse that it’s someone she… likes. Trusted, even.

She’d like to trust Reyes and Bonnie now. She’d like to hope the spell they’re doing is a good thing, that there really is a chance of getting home. She wants it to be true, desperately.

But that doesn’t mean she does trust them. Not after the trip through the house.

Meaning that once her body is her own she rushes to them, not the portal.

“Is this what you’ve been up to?” she asks Reyes, not quite accusatory but not quite approving, either. “And you didn’t… let us know? Do you even have any proof it leads home?”

Sheppard | OTA

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

[So that just happened. Sheppard's still in huntbeast form as a giant, seven-foot lynx-like creature, either unable or unwilling to turn back, and the moment he's freed from the power in the webs he snarls and starts pacing. If someone has never seen him in this form, it's definitely Sheppard's voice that comes out of the monster.

He turns to whoever's around, near him, or maybe he crosses the room to address you personally.

They don't have much time.]

I don't trust this! Do you?

[rainestorms]

[Raine looks worse for wear. Between the blood on their person and the various mystery bites, bruises, gashes, torn clothes, remnants of their room's corruption, and other miscellaneous things... They've had more than enough. They're ready to end this, so they don't do much in sense of a reaction to Sheppard.]

I certainly don't trust it anymore than I trust anything else about this terrible place. Every set of stairs or hole or doorway that the entities have given us haven't led to anything good.

[They hesitate, but at this point they don't really care.]


I do want to ask our friends-

[There's a poison to friends, namely, they don't see either as a friend]

-what they think this is, but I'm not sure they'd even tell us the full truth. Not when they had to control us to get us here...

[dangerousmind]

Well. No. For obvious reasons.

[Aelwyn is slumped up against the wall, as casual as can be (realistically she has surpassed the 'can be' threshold) even in these rather dire circumstances.]

I think our dear "friends" are being honest though, for once.

[bossyboiler]

Obviously not. Are you stupid? [ She lets out a sob. ]

[ Sorry Sheppard. It's not personal but Kate is grieving and striking out, looking to make someone feel like she feels. She doesn't even care that Sheppard is a werecat. ]

Kate Cordello - Original - OTA

[bossyboiler]

[ Kate has seen better days. Her hair is frazzled. There's blood everywhere some of which isn't hers. She's dirty and her entire face is red from crying and screaming. ]

We can't go. They just admitted that they want us to infect our own worlds. We have to stay.

[dangerousmind]

[Aelwyn laughs lowly. It's a hollow sound, low at the back of her throat. It's a bit girlish, like she's still just a kid haunted by a cat in the dark.]

I don't particularly give a shit about my world. Or this one for that matter. Could you honestly say that after everything that's happened you actually still do?

[canofmanji]

[For once, Manji actually looks a bit upset about this. He knows Kate has a point.] Then I'm afraid the last thing we're going to do is disagree. Because I have to go back.

Bucky/Winter - OTA

[worthallthis]

Winter is not in the best shape. Not because he's injured, but because he's so far beyond upset he's practically unresponsive. The momentary lack of control of his own body almost goes unnoticed, and he only struggles against it blindly for the last moments of it until he's freed to slump against Rogers, catching himself on his shoulder.

He stares at the portal for a long moment in silence.

He never thought they could go back. He hasn't really wanted to. Everything he ever cared about was in Gloucester.

But. There's a world out there where Yelena isn't dead. For a moment, through the fog in his head, he's... tempted.

[bossyboiler]

Yelena had been her best friend, her sister from another mister, her bestie, her ride or die. They had rode but Yelena had died. She feel so very raw and still wants to lash out. She wants to make people hurt like she hurts.

However... However, someone has to be the strong one. She looks over at Winter after talking to both Bonnie and Reyes. She should shoot them. Kate had been brought into Dogtown by a compulsion spell. She had been through heck to get in and then once inside the house, she'd been through Hell itself. She still might shoot them though but there time is dwindling.

Kate lets out a ragged breath. She addresses both Rogers and Winter. "Please don't listen to them. We can't take the chance what the Entities will unleash once in another world." It could be worse, so much worse than what Gloucester had experienced. "I'm staying."

Her face crumbles. She sniffs. She manages to hold back another sob but can't stop the tears falling from her eyes. She doesn't want to be the strong one. "Please stay with me."

martin blackwood | ota, i'll match your format!

[lowficharm]

[As soon as they all enter, as soon as he can't move, Martin feels like everything is happening in slow motion. He wasn't there when Jon did the ritual back in his England, back when he was racing home as the sky darkened and everything was going wrong and he knew everything had been too good to be true. This time he gets to see it- gets to feel it in his chest, the tears in his eyes, the knowledge that he failed.

But what opens is a portal. It's not the end of the world, not yet, but it's not better. It's not good.

And as soon as he can move, he's running full-tilt to the middle of the room and throwing his hands wide, between everyone else and the portal.]

You-- you can't! You can't go! You'll bring them with you!

[dangerousmind]

[Aelwyn smiles, lips curling like a Cheshire cat.]

And that's only a choice you're allowed to make, is it?

[It's a targeted cruelty, considering the amount of things Martin has offered her. All the vulnerability and information, and she's turning it against him at the last second.

Said the scorpion to the frog. Though she's always thought this frog had some poison of his own.]

[rainestorms]

"I was already planning to destroy it, but now I absolutely want to. I'd love to see home again, but not if it makes what's possible there worse than it already is."

Their eyes are glued to the gate, determined if not weary.

"How do we stop it, then? I could try and disrupt the portal."

It was clearly made from Web, after all.

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

"What the hell?"

There's a huntbeast near Martin, a seven-foot tall, lynx-like creature, pacing on all fours. It's Sheppard's voice that comes out of it, though more feral than it was.

"The Entities?"

delloso de la rue | ota

[ruevealing]

Nia's dead.

[There's a touch of ferocity mixed in with the sadness of the owlbear's tone. The blood covering their dress and feathers is red, not the color fae blood.]

Her dying wish was for all of us to know this was a trap and that we needed to leave this building immediately. She - [and Rue has no problem shooting a look over to where Bonnie is wrapped up with Reyes.] - Disguised herself as Nia to lure us all in. It was a lie from the very beginning, one the real Nia died trying to protect us from.

How are we to trust anything they say?

[dangerousmind]

[Aelwyn liked Nia, for all her faults. Her death means absolutely nothing. She has just enough self control not to speak out loud the first thought that comes to mind upon hearing this information.

What a shame. I would have liked to kill her myself.]

You're asking if we should trust the dead monster who lied to us over the living monsters who lied to us?

A lot of people are dead. To some extent that [At this, she points at Reyes and Bonnie] is their fault. And to another extent it's Nia's. To a greater extent, you could absolve all of them and blame the entities.

The question isn't about trust. It's about what you want going forward. If you want to be a hero, then you'll have to do what Jonathan Sims wanted, and kill everyone here.

Aelwyn Abernant | OTA

[dangerousmind]

[There's a disturbing calmness to Aelwyn, as everyone panics and weeps and explodes with emotion, Aelwyn feels... nothing. Maybe this is what they mean when they talk about the lightless flame.

She remembers conversations with Jon, where she would arrogantly put forward her theories to the archivist and he would shoot her down as someone misunderstanding and blundering her way with preconceptions of "ways to win" or "free will."

The Spider wants her through that gate, she's sure of it, and she wants to brutalize the Spider. She wants to roast the Spider over a roaring flame and feast on it's charred flesh.]

This is the only way we can win, you know.

[There's a madness in her. How long has it been there? How long ago did she become a monster? It wasn't during her trip, when she'd committed yet another act of murder, and it wasn't even after she arrived here.

That same megalomania that brought Penelope Everpetal into an early casket has always been in Aelwyn. The fire has simply nurtured it within her.]

Reyes and Bonnie are idiots - in over their heads. But for once, the Entities are too. We can - I can lead them like pigs to the slaughter. [Her mouth twists into a grin and she laughs. She doesn't even notice the tears A relief. An ache. She'd resigned herself to giving up on it. Giving up on Adaine and... well, that's about it. Who cares about the rest of the universe in comparison to the two people she has any love left for? Mercy and the mere concept of a sister she treated with nothing but disdain.

She just has to find and kill her mama and papa.]

[ferriswheelsandfootball]

[Sheppard hears that and turns back to Aelwyn, drawn by the Hunt. He's been struggling with his own nature, having embraced it but also knowing the limitations of it. He's devolved (or maybe evolved) into a beast (though he finds his own more more aesthetically pleasing that Hickey's) but there's still a part of him that pretends to be human, that tries to grasp quickly fading morals, and he's dimly aware of it. All he cares about is protecting his own (Rodney) and those he'd call his friends.]

You sure about that?

[He's aware enough of his own nature that there is no winning, sometimes. And all there is, is the Chase. Or maybe he just recognizes the destruction in Aelwyn.]

Cast Bar (OTA)

[wewillwewill]

[OOC: Elidibus will be seeking to destroy or hasten the time the portal has until closing again. His actions will in no way prevent some people from escaping, etc as far as player autonomy goes even if he succeeds in cutting the timer. Think of them as giving those who want to stay OOCly but would leave ICly a reason to stay.]

Elidibus stood watching. Listening.

There had been much and more he had experienced in this house. The horrors, the fears. The... crimes he had inflicted on innocent lives under the influence of the Entities.

These were acknowledged but they must wait for just a moment. Here and now was the answer to all that had happened. Or at least... all that had been built up to. Not all the answers were here, and they never were. He could not necessarily say the decision he was coming to was the best way forward or even a good one; there really wasn't much time.

But he would make it nonetheless and deal with the consequences.

"This must not pass."

Fear had been in abundance. So it's no surprise he still has some power left to him. Wards are risen to try and prevent manipulators from stopping him, to try and aid in preventing interruption- though it is not as if concerted effort couldn't curtail or stop him.

And spellwork is gathered. A red sigil appears superimposed over his features- an instinctive message of the importance of his intentions, though something only one person on this star would probably understand or find relevant.

"Such entities must not be allowed to spread to the stars. To the realities beyond their current reach. Even if there is no other way home, I ...as Elidibus cannot stand by and allow this exodus."

[apocalypsehownpcs]

"How magnanimous of you, truly. To decide the fates of others...you must fancy yourself a king of the whims of others. I like your style."

Sarcasm or honest praise? It was hard to say with Milo's tone. Still, they warp and appear as much 'beside' Elidibus as they can, their limbs and fingers and even their smile elongated to caricatures of themself.

"Do you think breaking the door from its hinges will make it stop...or simply open it wider? I am curious."