apocalypsehowcomm | Event

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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[Alright. So the seal usually talks to people. To humans. But there's a question...]

Do you normally talk out loud? Like... in spoken language?

[Two slaps, almost immediately. He's keyed in now, and he knows what it looks like when Jon is putting the pieces together, keeping his eyes looking directly at the other man. Martin just needs him to get there before the kelpies come back, and then maybe they can both get out of here.]

[Right. Seals can't speak. He doesn't know if that's biologically possible even. he can't say that seal biology is his speciality.]

Are.. are you a shapeshifter?

[The seal looks at him as if he's getting a little tired of all of these questions and possibly stressed at the fact there is not an answer coming that he wants in all of this. Rather, Martin is starting to worry because this is taking a long time and he needs to get the both of them the hell away from here before anyone else takes notice.

That is to say, the seal taps a very stern one slap for no, and then starts trying to climb into the boat, snuffling to itself as if talking under it's breath.

Oh forget it, we have to go, for the love of...]

[He's never been looked at so disapprovingly by anyone not human. That's a little disconcerting.

And then the seal starts bumping against the boat and trying to climb into the little boat.]

What? What are you-

Fine... We can talk in the boat, I suppose.

[Well, at least once you figure all this out it won't be as weird. Maybe. We'll get there when we get there. In the meantime, catch this seal blob rolling his way into the boat and then trying to look back at Jon as if that's going to make him understand any harder.]

Arf!

[Jon! Come on!

After a few moments of direct staring, he's going to look around the boat a bit and see if there's something he can grab to illustrate this better.]

[Jon backs away, pressing up against the very back of the boat, and he eyes the seal warily. He's not particularly good with wild animals.]

Are... are you looking for something?

[Without missing a beat, Martin taps out two knocks for yes on the bottom of the boat as he snuffles around. He's not seeing anything at first, and he turns back towards Jon, looking at him with a little more desperation in his eyes. He tries to concentrate, working through the bits of noises he can make with this stupid blubbery sealskin.]

Rrr... Ooooon.. MMMMMMM.

[He pauses, scrunching his face up a little as if frustrated, and tries again.]

Maaaarooo. Tttoooon. Marrrootoon.

[Martin, Martin, Martin! It's me!]

[The seal looks agitated, but it's definitely trying to communicate. And from the frustration, it sounds important. He thinks? The seal might just be really hungry.

And then it starts to yowl. It's an odd sound. A weird howl-snuffle-growl of a thing. But Jon thinks he hears words in it.]

Wait- Martin? Did you say Martin?

[Immediately his eyes snap up to Jon, slapping the bottom of the boat a couple of times and nodding his chubby little head. Maybe he can get the hang of this better.]

Maaaaaarrrrroooon!!

[Wow t's are hard and he's barely making the m's. Damn. As if it's going to illustrate better, this time he slaps his chest twice to try and indicate himself.]

Maaaaarrrrrtoooooo.

[God he's trying.]

Martin? Martin!

[The reality of the situation hits him and he stares at the seal. At Martin.

Oh god. His boyfriend has been turned into a seal. Even for his life that is... weird. What the hell does he do now?

He reaches out towards the seal, a little warily because if he's wrong there's a good chance he might lose a finger or two.]

Martin?

[Martin slaps his little flipper against the boat, a triumphant sort of yes yes yes. Thankfully for Jon, he is rewarded for his cautious optimism, and he nuzzles into Jon's hand when it's presented, feeling the warmth, feeling like for the first time everything's going to be okay.]

Maaaaaa. Mmmmmeeee.

[Oh close enough. Now he has to worry about getting out of this fucking thing.]

A.... Aaaaaallllp. Aalp?

[Oh H's are not happening, bollocks. How does he communicate something as complicated as 'in an ironic twist of fate, I need you to stab me, actually'? He's just gonna wing it.]

Oooooooouuuuut. O... ooocccc? Oooout.

[Alright c's are off the table too.]

[Well, that proves it, he thinks. Wilde seals aren't generally... cuddly, he thinks. He spends a moment scritching the seal- his boyfriend's fur, and oh lord, this is strange.]

I- of course I'll help you, Martin!

You- you want to get out of the water?

[Oooh, that feels so nice, what if he just falls asleep right here-- no, no, he needs to focus. He does purr just a little though. It's nice.

Since they're hopefully communicating a little better than slap one for yes and two for no, he shakes his head in a definitive no, mostly because he's already in the boat.]

Arrrrrroooooutt.

[Then followed by what sounds like a very annoyed grumble of sounds because boy is he struggling.]

Eeeeeeerrrrrree. Oooooouuuuut. Mmmmm.

[He tries slapping his little flippers on his stomach as if to gesture 'out of here, out of this'. Maybe he can say something else, though. Let's try knife.]

Nnnnnniiiiiiieeee. Nnnnnieeeefff?

[Sure.]

Event - For Sport

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