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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[Part of her wants to ask where he's offering to go with her. Part of her is scared that going outside might mean getting taken again. But she trusts Chris to at least make an effort at protecting her ~~unlike Aelwyn~~, and she can't stand the plainness either.]

Yeah, lemme just grab my cane.

All right.

[ Chris doesn't rush her or anything, though, and will stay seated until Meredith starts to get up.

He hasn't missed the thumb braces, and his head cocks briefly in her hand's direction as Meredith goes to reach for her cane. ] How's that feeling?

It'll be fine. Hardly the first time I've popped my thumbs. It made swimming as a seal harder, but I was just trying to get out of the ropes.

[There's a bit of a pause, as she considers how much to tell Chris. She doesn't tend to talk about what's up with her body back home--mostly out of fear that she'll be seen as weak. Here, she's already proven herself to be weak. It might someday be important that someone knows.

At the same time, Chris seems like one of the strongest people here, someone who belongs in this sort of fight. What right does she have to dump on him? In the end, she decides to go with the shortest, and perhaps least satisfying possible explanation.]

My shit's fucked up.

[She's not sure if he comes from a world that had a Warren Zevon. But it's the best shorthand she has for everything.]

[ Her answer gets a wry smile out of him. ]

I hear that.

[ Do you want to talk about it hangs on the edge of his tongue, but Chris saves it for later. Maybe when they're not hanging around a facility full of people in varying states of mental and physical disarray.

Chris sticks his hands in his pockets when they start to walk, keeping his pace in line with Meredith's as they go. ]

You must be a hell of a swimmer. I missed that at survival training.

Ah, I'm decent at treading water, but I made a terrible seal. Stuck to the shallows, mostly and tried to hide in the seaweed, instead of trying to outswim the kelpies.

[She appreciates him letting her set the pace. She's slow, but tries not to be too obvious about it. Yeah, this is just a casual stroll, no big deal.]

Where are we headed, anyway?

Depends on whether you like sweet or savoury. [ Which isn't really an answer answer, but implies Chris has every intention to eat. He hasn't had breakfast yet, but it's been a busy day.

The doors open, and true enough the sun shines like nobody's business. Though the windows in the building had shone some light into the room, nothing beats actually standing in it. Chris turns his head up, and while there's a fair smattering of clouds as well, they're pretty and white and soft like pulled cotton candy. ]

That, and I wanted to get flowers. [ He turns, looking down at Meredith with a raised brow. ] You any good at arranging that stuff?

I'm a personal assistant. I know how to get flowers to my boss's mother halfway across the country in less than an hour when he forgets her birthday. Why, is there someone special you're looking to surprise with them?

[She pauses a moment once outside to take a slow, deep breath. The air feels different today. Maybe it's what she's been through, maybe it's the way she's feeling out of place in her own body. She'll ~~stew over~~ consider it more deeply later.]

As for food...do we have to pick between sweet and savory? Why not both?

I don't know about surprising. [ He chuckles, a bit embarrassed. ] Just my luck you're good with flowers, though.

I'll shell out for a full course meal in exchange for your expertise. Deal.

[ Once Meredith looks like she's ready to get going again, Chris cocks his head briefly in the direction of the parking lot. ] C'mon. Work gave me a pretty kickass scooter.

[ Except it's not very "kickass" when they get there. In a parking spot is a standard motorised scooter, not at all built for speed, but it's still better than having Meredith sat on a bike seat whilst Chris stands to pedal.

He waits for her to sit before handing her the helmet. ]

You okay with me tying your cane down, or do you wanna hold it?

[Under normal circumstances, there'd be a token protest about the helmet, but she hasn't had a proper shower yet, let alone had time to do her hair since everything. So it goes on without hesitation.]

Tying up the cane is fine. I think I'd rather have both hands free to hold on.

[There's a visible moment when she realizes how that might sound, given ~~what~~ who she'll be holding onto.

She decides not to course correct, though.]

[ For what it's worth, Chris doesn't catch anything off about what she'd said. ] Yeah, safety first, right? [ He's pulling some string he's wound around the bike's right handle, and with it he ties the cane down pretty securely.

With that done, Chris gets on the scooter, too. He waits for Meredith to get comfy holding onto him, and then sets it off.

The machine's definitely not built for speed, but the brush of cool air against their face is a welcome contrast to the warmth of the sun as they leave the premises and enter the streets proper. ]

You like paella, Meredith?

Yeah--I've even tried to make it once or twice, back home. Never turned out quite right, but I'm guessing you've already found out a place with an authentic Latina mama in the kitchen doing the cooking.

[There's a part of her that's a little nervous about being out in the open, exposed, given how she was grabbed off the streets and no one was able to save her. But she tries to shove down those thoughts, holding tighter to Chris.]

Maybe some flan for dessert?

[ Chris doesn't miss the tightening of Meredith's grip, but doesn't question it, either. Considering where she came from and what being in one of those bed implies, he doesn't think he has to ask.

He does chuckle, though, at Meredith's suggestion. ] I love flan. [ And it means they won't have to go anywhere too far after brunch (God, he hates the term "brunch"). ]

I used to move around a lot with my sister, and even more when I started working. [ He's gentle on a turn, curving with as little tilt as possible. ] First Redfield rule of moving was always "find all the good places to eat at that won't kill your wallet".

This place cooks really fresh seafood. But I guess you'd figure as much, huh?

You have a sister? Is she a lot like you, or...?

[The mental image is amusing, and she is genuinely interested in knowing more about Chris, and what sort of world he's from.]

I've found a good Thai place, in case you need one for your list. And an Indian hole-in-the-wall for when you're dying for butter chicken.

No kidding? [ Chris grins at the offer. ] Damn. Tell me when I can take my phone out.

[ Which won't be long, really. In just a few more turns they'll end up stopping at what looks to be like someone's house... because it is someone's house, just converted for the first floor to be a restaurant. The family, Chris had been told, lives on the second floor.

For now, though, he's more than happy to talk about Claire. ] My sister looks a lot different than me, but I guess we have... uh, similar interests. [ He can't help the "heh" that follows. ] She's got bright red hair, more leather jackets than me, the aim of an eagle... and she's brave like a hero out of the old legends. Just, you know, a lot less stupid.

[ The scooter will gradually come to a stop, and once he's sure Meredith's good about her balance, Chris will move to untie her cane to give it back to her. ]

You good to go?

Edited 2021-07-27 07:03 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm good.

[The fresh air and Chris's kind attitude are both helping a lot, actually.]

So, the Thai place is called Thai Choice, and it's on Main Street. The Indian place is called Anmol, and it's north of the Beverly Depot train station. There's also a board game cafe in that area, but I haven't had the time to check it out.

[There's a pause, and a bit of a wibbly gesture mid-air.]

Okay, that's a lie. I'm kinda nervy about going to a place like that alone.

[ "Nervy"? ]

Don't think I've ever been to a board game cafe. It exactly what it sounds like?

[ When they reach the door, Chris holds it open with a brief sweep of the arm to gesture ladies first. Then he closes it behind him once he's in.

Walls have been knocked down to make a bigger dining area, though the decor and colour scheme very much scream comfort food. They aren't the first ones here by a longshot, but it being a weekday and all, it isn't too difficult for Chris to spot an open table for them. They're lucky enough it's by a window, though if Meredith has any oppositions to the sun, he won't be fussed about moving.

Nevertheless, the scent of spices and seafood is clear in the air, and so is the generous smell of bell peppers. Though Chris' belly rumbles, he doesn't even bother feeling embarrassed about it. Instead, it makes him much more excited about flagging down one of the waitstaff to order seafood paella to share (good for 3-4!) and flan to be served for dessert. ]

Did you want the menu? [ He's handing Meredith the drink list, though, in case there's anything she wants. Chris, meanwhile, is more than happy with tap water. ]

Cafe with a bunch of board games, ranging from Connect Four and Candyland to Risk and Settlers of Catan. But, I don't really know the locals, and there's not many board games for one person.

[She settles into a seat, not minding the sun much. She waves off the menu, smiling slightly.]

If they have horchata, great. If not, water's fine.

[ So Chris orders a horchata, and gives a quick "thanks" before the waiter's on their way.

Then he turns to Meredith again, curious. ] I gotta ask, what's "Settlers of Catan"?

It's a board game about settling territory and managing resources on an uncolonized island. Find me a couple more players, sometime, and I'll show you.

Uh, if you like board games at all, that is.

[Meredith has a mild competitive streak. Mild, in that it doesn't rear its head over anything important. But where board games and Jackbox and other inconsequential things are involved? Well, she can be a little bit ruthless.]

Oh, I like board games enough. But you'll have to give me a pass when the most complicated stuff I've done is, uh... [ He rubs lightly at the tip of his nose. ] Monopoly.

And I sucked at it. Don't think I ever got all the mechanics.

[ He's easy about getting to places, really. All his life, the biggest hindrance Chris had for a personal life was work, and so far, his work with the ADI hasn't been nearly as demanding as his work with the BSAA had been. (He's not looking forward to paperwork, though.)

Planning shit with friends? It's a breeze here. At least, so far. ]

How many players do you need to duke it out over land?

[Paperwork? That's what a Meredith is for--leave it to her, she'll let you have the fieldwork in the meantime.]

Three to four, unless they have the expansions. Then you can go up to five or six.

[She glances out the window, then back at Chris.]

You know, you can ask the other questions, too.

[ Their glasses of tap water are put down, and though Chris does thank the waitstaff for it, it's only a moment's reprieve before he meets Meredith's gaze.

He's nothing if not certain about direction, at least.

Arms folding over the table, his brows furrow the slightest bit. ] ...you're okay to talk about it? [ It's important he makes sure. Personal experience on either end of the talking has shown him countless times how forcing it's a stupid idea. ]

I think so. And I know I'm good to tell you if you hit a landmine.

[She's still not sure if he's going to start with the seal thing or the medical stuff. The latter, she's used to having to explain, and she's done so for ADI staff repeatedly since arriving. So she knows that's safe territory.]

[ So Chris nods.

Thinking back to Spencer Mansion, and the way he'd laughed and cried alone in his apartment after, he decides to start simple. Inching in is usually better than stabbing in and finding it too deep. ]

You ever see anything like that, where you're from?

Like that...? No, not quite. I mean, it wasn't my first time being kidnapped. That doesn't get easier with experience, though. But. The kelpies and the sealskins and being hunted for sport, that was new. I don't think kelpies exist where I'm from.

[She flexes a hand and then balls it into a fist again, looking at her fingers quietly.]

So. Mostly a new experience, I guess.

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