apocalypsehowcomm | Event

Entry tags:

Event - For Sport

For Sport

➥ Breaking It In

(cw: mentions of apparent mutilation of/violence against animals and animal death)

The conference room on the upper floors of ADI HQ is bright, airy, perhaps unnaturally so for the grim tidings that bring people here today. Those who have recently arrived will be ushered to the meeting by ADI employees or by Bonnie. It's not just the newest arrivals, but some other people who seem to be longer-term employees. The room is rather large and arranged like a lecture hall. Bonnie takes up a seat near the back, looking somewhat uncomfortable, but smiling at anyone who greets her.

At 9 AM sharp, a person steps into the room and heads to the front. They have curly hair and are wearing a gray business suit with a dark blue bow-tie. When they address the group at large, they speak in a calm, measured tone. "Good morning. I appreciate some of you may be here more reluctantly than others, but… there are matters of import to all of us to discuss. Some of you may have seen me already. I am Reyes Amador, assistant to Ms. Lehrer, the head of ADI. Earlier this week I sent out a message regarding some unusual activity at Coffin Beach. Thank you to those who investigated."

Their eyes seem to find the people who did, in fact, go looking, whether they found something or not.

"We have determined the creatures are shape-shifters. Some sort of, em... horse thing. In lieu of a term they might give themselves, we are referring to them as kelpies. Given the locations these were found, as well as other information into disappearances and deaths and mutilations of sea mammals in the area, we believe the kelpies are coming from the Essex Bay area to the north.

"For those willing to assist, we are mounting a reconnaissance mission. This is not intended to engage kelpies, just to find out where they are and how we might best approach an attack. All supplies, transportation, and monetary compensation will be provided. We will meet at ADI HQ in main lobby at 6 PM three days from now. Essex Bay is a remote site and conservation area, accessible only by boat, and not without a scientific permit. As you may guess, we will be traveling under cover of nightfall." Reyes smiles.

"I will be accepting questions about further details. I understand this is the first mission away for many of you, and you may have concerns. I will do my best to allay them. Bonnie also has some experience in these missions, if you would like first-hand accounts. Please also feel free to discuss amongst yourselves if this is a mission you think you are ready for. You will not be required to attend, nor penalized in any way if you do not. There is additional work to be done here, both with continuing examinations of the bodies we have and other efforts unrelated."

➥ Move the Goalposts

(cw: kidnapping, violence, sadism)

It happens away from the safety of ADI HQ one evening or so early in the morning, it's still dark, away from the potential for help, maybe. One moment, you (and possibly someone you're with) are walking, and the next, you will find someone has grabbed you and slammed you into the nearest surface. For those unable to fight back, a cloth will be held to their noses and mouths--chloroform, something to knock them out. For those able to fight or even to escape thanks to not actually being corporeal, they'll find that it is a trio of people who have attacked them. They wear jagged smiles and they're all much too sharp around the edges beneath their clothes. Those who saw the kelpies at Coffin Beach may recognize these people as something like them.

"Run, rabbit, run," one of the group says, voice rolling out like a gurgling tide.

Those who run will be chased and, if caught, chloroformed. Perhaps you're lucky, though. Perhaps you can race them back to safety. Or perhaps you'll find help along the way to protect you. Either way, the kelpies are relentless in their pursuit unless one of their number is injured or their prey can make it to ADI. The kelpies seem reluctant to actually enter ADI HQ or their housing, and will break off pursuit there, slinking back to the shadows.

➥ Curveball

(cw: kidnapping, violence/violence and mutilation against apparent animals, sadism, body horror, transformation, potential for claustrophobia)

For those unlucky enough to be caught, they'll find themselves waking amongst mud and bodies. Living, breathing bodies, thankfully. You have been tied up, but not gagged, and left with a group of other captives. A nearby fire casts light over everything, showing a large group of naked people with long, scraggly hair hauling a seal up out of the water. The animal fights them with a cunning that might seem odd, but the kelpies just laugh at it. They get it up near the fire, one raises a knife, and stabs into the seal, dragging the blade down its belly.

The seal bellows and then goes limp, seeming to collapse in on itself. It isn't long before a woman is drawn from the skin, shaking, fighting, wild-eyed with terror as her captors shove her around the fire in their own game. A few others turn their attention to the captives who are just beginning to wake and move about. They approach, one grabbing the skin the woman had come out of, others grabbing more skins from a nearby pile.

"Hush, hush... you'll have your freedom soon... while you can swim." The words come just before the kelpie slices your bonds and throws the skin over you.

The skin grapples your body, twisting tight around you, encasing and restraining. Your body is different now, thick and round, ungainly in the mud. Your legs have fused together and your arms have shrunk to thin flippers. This is not your body, you can feel how foreign it is, how you're crammed into the too-small confines of it... but you have instincts to go with it. Water is freedom! Or it's an attempt at freedom. It's either swim for your lives as some mockery of a selkie or stay and see how it feels to be cut open. Luckily for you, you'll find yourself psychically linked to the other selkies around you. Maybe you can do something together? Best think fast because the kelpies are setting their sights on new prey to chase once they've finished with their latest victim.

➥ Below the Belt

(cw: violence/violence and mutilation against apparent animals, body horror, gore)

The journey to Essex Bay isn't a long one, but it's somewhat treacherous as a small group of powerboats make their way into the refuge. The mission is simple: find where the kelpies are and see if there are any strategic points of-

Was that a seal? There are, in fact, many seals that pop up once boats enter the bay. The animals might seem to have an unusual cunning about them. Will they lead you somewhere useful? Perhaps try to flop themselves into your boats? The point is, there are seals accosting you in the middle of the night, and that's weird. Perhaps they have something they want to communicate.

Or was that a horse? A crocodile? There's something that seems to have noticed you, and it's smart enough that it's going to try to tip you and anyone else in your boat into the water rather than trying to engage otherwise. Sit down, you'll rock the boat.

➥ Sticky Wicket

(cw: potential for severe burns/injury, pain)

ADI is engaged in far more than one mission at a time, and for those not dealing with Essex Bay, or even before that, there are pick-ups to handle. Artifacts, you've been told as you're paired with someone else, whether you like it or not. The mission is simple: go to the Docks, collect a package from a locker there, and return with it to ADI. You've been provided an exact location and a code for the combination lock. The section of the Docks you've entered seems to be one with a lot of empty warehouses covered in graffiti, but the locker is there, something heavily reinforced and designed to be virtually impossible to get into. There's evidence that people have tried to gain entry without success.

Your code works, though, and you have your prize! You've been given strict instructions not to open the box the artifact is in… but there's nothing technically stopping you now, and there is a strange pull toward it.

Those who can't help themselves will find they have just picked up… some piece of sports gear! It looks wholly innocuous. Touch even a finger to it, though, and a horrific, searing pain will consume your entire body as 3rd-degree burns bloom across the skin where you've touched your artifact.

Or maybe you have a will of iron and sense enough not to touch strange, supernatural objects. What should be an easy mission is quickly derailed by some young punk darting out of an alleyway to try to steal your package. Or, at the very least, knock it from your hands. The youth is not alone, either. You've found yourself on someone's 'turf,' and they want what you've got. Are you cruel enough to let them have it?

➥ Mod Notes

BREAKING IT IN (21 July): Both Reyes and Bonnie will be available to answer questions that characters might have or listen to their complaints. Please put "NPC Requested" somewhere in your top-level response if you would like a mod response. For characters who can access their supernatural abilities and have some measure of supernatural spidey sense, both Bonnie and Reyes will register as off, but in different ways. Characters are welcome to attempt to use whatever powers they believe will work on the NPCs. There are potential IC consequences for this.
MOVE THE GOALPOSTS (23-24 July): Characters are welcome to capture or kill the kelpies. The only information they will be capable of providing to those who capture them and attempt to compel them for information is that they consider the entirety of the Massachusetts coast as their 'hunting grounds.' Whether that's true or not, it's what they believe.
CURVEBALL (23-24 July): Kidnapped characters will become seals! Sort of. Psychic seals who are extremely ill-fitted to the skins they're in. The only way to escape their current state is to be cut open and pulled out. As soon as they start to flee, the kelpies will chase them. Those who are captured will be cut out, toyed with, and shoved back into a skin again and again to continue the chase until they simply can't go on anymore.
BELOW THE BELT (24 July - night): Characters may encounter their selkie-fied comrades! Unfortunately, while the selkies can communicate with each other psychically, they are incapable of human speech. They are also being actively hunted by the kelpies. Characters may kill any kelpies they come across. Capture will not be possible in this case while they're in their horse forms. If PCs do not eradicate the kelpie threat that night, NPCs who have joined the mission will do so. Unfortunately, reconnaissance has become engagement, whether they like it or not.
STICKY WICKET (21 July - 5 August): You may select any piece of sporting gear you'd like for your character to pick up as long as it can fit in a reasonably-sized box. The pain associated with the burning will last only as long as a character is touching the object. Holding onto it for more than a minute will likely result in coming very close to death. Characters with inorganic appendages will find that the artifact will start to melt that appendage, whatever it is made of and it will still, somehow, hurt while it does it.
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ true, very true. shiro’s brain went more weighty with pottery or stone tablets or miniature statues but there could be a piece of jewelry in there or maybe even clothing. both qualify as an artifact.

again, curiosity swells but -- caduceus has the right idea. finish the mission with the possibility that adi will expand the trust in their working relationship and clue them in on what’s really going on here. for now, shiro turns his gaze away and starts backtracking the way they came in. ]

Maybe. They’ve been relatively transparent with us thus far.

Have they?

[It feels like something is missing, but Caduceus doesn't know what the puzzle is supposed to look like and so he has no idea what pieces might be missing. So, for now, he's going along and paying attention, trying to glean what he can. Some of the ADI people are hard to read, though. He wants to get know Bonnie better, but one thing at a time.

He turns to head back in the direction they came... and forgets to duck. The tall firbolg knocks his head against a low doorway and the box tumbles to the floor.

And falls open.

It flips, losing its cargo before it properly lands. Caduceus rubs his head, muttering under his breath somewhat reproachfully before he turns his attention to their parcel. Then he cocks his head. He has no idea what he's looking at.]

What is that...?

[ relatively. they’re clearly not divulging everything, which is, of course, a problem if they’re meant to maintain a viable working relationship. but adi seems to be trying to keep them in the loop with the strange happenings -- it’s just, their information gathering is flawed, as seen with the kelpie disaster.

that mission was a clusterfuck from the beginning, only made worse in the end by being down in numbers and no one fully understanding what they were up against. it has shiro questioning the leadership of this organization but other than that, he hasn’t quite gotten any sinister vibes.

… until now, that is.

caduceus collides with the doorway and down goes the box. it’s a rush of concern for his partner and for the artifact itself, but before shiro can get too caught up in the scenario of explaining a broken item to headquarters, his gaze lands on what topples out and…

squints. ] … That can’t be the artifact. [ except, it is. the right locker, the right combination -- shiro feels the annoyance building the longer he looks at what appears to be a jockstrap. ] They wouldn’t have sent us out here for… [ trails off and abruptly crosses his arms. ] It has to be a joke.

[Caduceus moves closer to look down at it, leaning his weight into his staff as he does.]

What is it?

[Yeah, he has no idea. He's seen some really innocuous things that happened to be artifacts, though, so even with Shiro's disbelief, he's not so sure it's not what they were sent to retrieve.

He looks over at Shiro, who looks somewhere between annoyed and startled by the appearance of the thing in question.]

Why would it be a joke?

[He doesn't get it.]

[ caduceus please; take a gander and take a guess! granted, shiro doesn’t know much of anything about his new companion, aside from some idle chitchat before this mission was in full swing, but judging from appearances alone, shiro thinks it is safe to assume caduceus did not grow up with soccer and football as the go-to, after school sports.

it’s not a big deal he tells himself. he’s less flustered over it being a jockstrap and more annoyed over them expending time and effort to retrieve said jockstrap. he thought they were on an important mission. seems less so when he’s staring down at looped strips of cloth.

cue the grimace and the pained: ] It’s an undergarment. [ tightens the cross of his arms. ] Specifically designed to… protect.

[ -- protect y'know. oh wait, that's the whole problem. ]

[He looks at it again and, slowly, understanding dawns on him. Even if he doesn't say it out loud, surely Shiro can hear the ooooooh in his expression. It's obvious that Shiro is a little flustered about the whole thing, but he can't tell if that's due to the nature of the artifact or doubt.

Huh.

[He's seen artifacts that are also armor, so the concept isn't completely foreign, but. That's a choice. Caduceus peers down at it, maybe looking at it more intently than anyone should rightly be looking at a jockstrap.]

I'll get the box, [he says, thinking that it'd be better not to touch it. He's also the one that kind of threw it in the first place. He makes sure to duck this time as he goes through the doorway.]

Edited 2021-08-04 17:56 (UTC)

[ caduceus, no, stop that. stop staring at it all intent-like. shiro draws in a deep, steadying breath and releases it slow as caduceus -- thankfully -- turns away from the jockstrap. ]

Okay. [ see, shiro doesn’t want to touch the jockstrap either. if shiro wants to be childish about it, this is caduceus’ fault anyway, so shiro’s not exactly wrong to leave him to get everything back in working order. even so, shiro can’t quite bring himself to follow through with that and instead, as caduceus is off getting the box, shiro supposes he can at least pluck up the jockstrap.

from the waistband. baaaarely pinched between his fingers.

-- still burns like hell though. shiro’s barely lifted it two inches off the floor before pain radiates from the pads of his index and thumb. he yelps and abruptly lets go, stumbling back a step as he immediately brings his hand in close to give it a look. ]

What the -- ! [ he knew this was some sort of shitty joke! ]

[Caduceus stands straight, quickly, when he hears Shiro yell. He blinks slowly, trying to figure out what just happened. Did it bite him? The cleric moves closer, eyeing the jockstrap again and then turning his attention to Shiro's fingers, which look badly burned.]

Let me see your hand, [he says as he sets the box down near the jockstrap. He'll take care of that in a minute, he wants to make sure Shiro's okay first. And he wants to make sure that whatever damage was just done isn't something that will spread.]

What did it feel like?

[This isn't good. And he finds himself somewhat annoyed that ADI didn't prepare them better, or at least warn them that the thing they were coming for could be dangerous. And if they didn't know--that seems rather irresponsible.]

[ so perhaps this is why adi stressed do not open the box. huh. might’ve worked better if they’d tacked on a one-liner about how said artifact will burn the living daylights out of you. shiro is, once again, questioning the leadership of this organization; clearly an overhaul of how they prep for missions is needed here.

none of that solves his current predicament though. he stares down at his left hand, trying not to panic too heavily over the dark red and leathery look of his index and thumb. wordlessly, he turns the hand out to caduceus, palm up to show his ruined pads. what did it feel like? pain. searing pain. all through his body and up to his head, scrambling his thoughts. shiro is, unfortunately, not a stranger to pain but at least he’s usually half-prepared for it.

this? from a fucking jockstrap? forget the pain, shiro is mostly offended. ]

Felt like they were being incinerated right off. [ he’s still looking at the burnt skin, rather than caduceus, but after an extended beat of lamenting another scarred piece of himself, he redirects his attention to caduceus. ]

But the pain is gone. [ probably because the nerve-endings were destroyed. he frowns. ] I don’t think that’s a good thing in this case.

[Caduceus frowns as he examines Shiro's hand, careful as he runs his thumbs over his palm, pressing gently. There doesn't seem to be anything... expanding. The burns are localized, even if they look nasty. Caduceus considers how best to approach this, absently ticking through the spells he's prepared and which might be most appropriate. With the injury being so small, it seems like a focused spell might be best.

His instinct is to just heal, but he lifts his gaze to meet Shiro's before he does anything.]

I can fix it. Or I can wrap it with something to help the burn and you can see if someone at ADI can take care of it. [He pauses, then adds,] I can restore nerve damage. I don't know what they can do.

[Just in case that helps Shiro make a decision.]

[ … is there a third option? stubbornly, shiro wants to brush off caduceus and adi. some burnt fingers and loss of feeling, sure, whatever, it’s fine. shiro’s adapted to worse and he’s fairly certain he can live with this too. it’s better than letting anyone run their magic through him like some experiment.

this is different, he tells himself. jury’s out on adi’s magic user who’s on staff in the medical wing. caduceus could be different? the fact that he’s asking for shiro’s okay is encouraging at least, enough so that shiro doesn’t outright say no. it’s not as though he has an aversion of magic users either. allura had -- has -- her own list of abilities that fit the broad category of magic.

so -- he delays a moment longer on a deep inhale and then he sighs, frowning around a tentative: ]

What would fixing it entail exactly? [ nerve damage restore, yes, but shiro means… how does the magic manifest. a chant? mere focusing of his -- energy? is there a cost to it? ]

[Caduceus considers the injury.]

Cure Wound would probably work best, [he says after a moment.] And it's just.. a few words and a gesture. You might feel a little warm, and since there's nerves involve it might tingle.

[Beyond that, however, there's no cost to him or to Shiro. Well... no cost that will matter right now. Learning how to use his magic here hasn't been a straight road, but he's getting the hang of it now. It's not quite the relationship to his power that he's used to, but he understands the symbiosis of it now.]

[ oh, huh. it has a name. is it weird that knowing the spell is known well enough that it has its own name brings him a shred of comfort? he still doesn’t like the idea of messing with his body’s physiology all that much but he supposes he’s cheated injury before by stasising in a healing pod. perhaps this is loosely similar enough, just on a much smaller scale, that he can stomach it.

reluctant as he is, it takes a few more moments of wrestling the idea back an’ forth. inevitably, he does settle on a decision and punctuates it with a sigh, as well as one, firm nod of his head. ]

Alright. Go ahead.

[Caduceus says the words and runs his fingers over the burns. The pain fades from the surface first and sinks down through the injured fingers. Shiro will likely get a strong sense of that pins-and-needles feeling, but then it passes, fizzing out to his fingertips and then fading altogether.

He considers his handiwork, then lightly taps the pad of Shiro's index finger with his own.]

How's that feel?

[Might be tender yet; the skin is still pink, but intact. Even the fingerprints are still there.]

[ the reluctance follows him even as they cross the point of no return. words are being spoken and shiro feels them, or rather, feels the magic that begins touching every ruined piece of skin, muscle, nerve. the shift of his expression keeps pace with the progression of the spell, starting with a wary frown and ending on a neutral, albeit slightly awed look.

caduceus taps their fingers together and shiro releases a breath he just now catches himself holding. surprisingly, there’s a laugh there at the end of it, breathy and brief. so perhaps that wasn’t so bad afterall. ]

Good as new. [ he brings his hand in close to himself, flexing the fingers out and then curling them in for a fist. ] Maybe even better.

[ okay. not quite. still a twinge of tenderness. nonetheless, he smiles in genuine gratitude. ]

Thanks for that.

You're welcome. Might still be tender for a while, sometimes it's best not to force everything at once, but. You won't die today, [he says lightly.

He releases Shiro's hand and turns his attention back to the discard cup. Hm. Caduceus moves and leans down to look at it again, then uses the lid of the box to scoot it back into the box itself. He really doesn't want to turn himself testing out if the thing is still dangerous. He doesn't know how many spells he really has to burn, and he doesn't want to waste them on himself if he can help it.]

Any chance this isn't what it looks like?

[Shiro seemed to think it was junk, as far as Caduceus can tell, but clearly there's something to it.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Event - For Sport

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Oh wow, i just noticed i fked up the code in my last tag LOL OOPS

it happens!!

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