thebastion | day 117 :: Core Event

Entry tags:

day 117 :: Core Event

Who: Everyone who wants to participate
Open: Open
When: Day 117
Where: Prosper Bluff --> Jawson's Bog
What: The PCs go hunting for a core, and get caught up in a dangerous situation
Format: log, action, etc.
Warnings: Some threads will contain triggering material. Those threads will be labeled as such in the headers.

[Some time has passed, and more people have arrived. It seems as though things have been turning around since the last hunt for a core. So when Nathaniel comes to tell everyone that another core has been located, and that they'll need to go get it, his somber attitude might seem a bit strange.]

Alright everyone, I'm getting an energy spike in the general area of Prosper Bluff, so I'm pretty sure a core is there. Unfortunately, I can't get an exact location on it, just a general area, so you're going to have to go down there and root it out yourself. It should be somewhere on the bluff, which will make for an easy recovery, since most monsters stay away from that area.

However, there is a chance that the core might be a bit further East, in Jawson's Bog. If it is, just leave it there. It is not worth risking your lives to go in there to get it.

[Everyone is free to talk to Nathaniel before leaving, if they want, or they can just be on their way. Either way, the NPCs will be waiting for them to return.]

Threadtracking:

Preparation thread
Prosper Bluff
Jawson's Bog
Jawson't Bog part 2
special group goes here

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey now...we're still alive, right? If we didn't have your protection, it'd probably be a much different story.

[Ippo gave the piece of paper attached to his chest a few taps with his finger and nodded before he returned Seimei's bow. Ippo kept his posture as respectful as possible...he was thankful to still be up and kicking after all.]

Thank you very much for your help Seimei-San!

Edited 2013-10-12 23:51 (UTC)

Ippo is right. If the effect is this strong while wearing your charms, it is likely the full force of the gas would have killed us outright.

[He looks around again warily.]

...I just hope that my suspicions as to the nature of this place are incorrect.

[The fact that he's noticeably tense should probably be a bit of a tip-off that he definitely doesn't mean it in a sunshine and rainbows way.]

[What, Alucard isn't a fan of sunshine and rainbows?

Well how about fire? Because the bog will be going up in flames now.]

Still... [ He stood, frowning and glancing off to the side uncomfortably. He was unconvinced that his charms had performed successfully. Even so, nothing to be done about it now.]

Whatever is creating the murky effect the area doesn't appear to be magical in nature - I would sense it - but I could simply be clouded by the pois--

[ Flames erupting everywhere startled the normally calm onmyoji, his hand in his sleeve and back out with his fan snapped open in the blink of an eye, prepared to fight, proof he was no slouch, despite his largely sedentary lifestyle. He had thought they were under attack but as his dark eyes glittered, catching the orange light, he looked more confused than frightened.

This wasn't right. This made no sense at all...had the gases ignited somehow? He wasn't burning but...what in hell was going on? ]

[Ippo snapped to attention far faster than his body was able to keep up with; though he just as easily found himself back to back with Seimei, his fists raised in front of his face as he swayed in preparation for any attack that might come. The bog had been normal a second ago...why was it on fire now? Nothing about this made any sense.]

This doesn't make any sense...if this is poison, why does it all feel so real? What kind of messed up situation is this?!

[The flames get Crona up off the ground, Ragnarok not-so-quietly freaking out in his meister's head. The demon sword hates fire.]

I...

[Crona can't fight. Not with the fire and heat all around and Ragnarok refusing to emerge for fear of evaporating completely.]

W-we should get out. We can't be here. We'll dieeeeeee.

[No. No no no nononono, this is all kinds of not good...]

It... appears we may be in a dream space. If that is so, we may be unable to leave until we defeat the creature behind it...

[Although he manages to get that to sound nearly as calm as he normally does, internally he's beginning to have a bit of a difficult time keeping himself together. To wield fire is one thing; to be surrounded by it when it's completely out of your control is quite another, especially when you have witnessed what a terrible fate burning to death is.]

[Burning to death definitely isn't a good thing. The group will have to work on avoiding that, since the flames are starting to spread closer.

And along with the spreading flames come the screams. Even though nobody had been in the bog a moment ago, somehow there are definitely the sounds of screaming coming from the fire. And if any of the group listens closely, they may hear familiar voices screaming for help, even if those familiar voices are from people who weren't in the Bastion.]

[ The fire was bad - the screams were worse. Seimei could feel the blood crashing through his veins, the roar in his ears a combination of his own pulse and the flames surrounding them. He tried to focus on logic, on calm and reason, but it was so hard. ]

Poison. Poison poison poison...gas....flames. Dreams. A shared dream. An illusion? No no...hallucinating! We're hallucinating-- [ But were they? How could he be sure? Certainly he had seen enough of such things in his life caused by demons and spirits, or even just vengeful men and women, but how could he be certain? He had failed too many times already to risk being wrong now.

And that screaming. What if he was wrong? What if this is real ]

Ma.... ka? [That was Maka's voice. Crona's eyes go wide and terrified, and the meister steps towards the flames.]

Maka!

[A shout, trying to hear Maka's voice again.]

[Can Seimei be sure they're hallucinating? Those screams definitely sound real, and the moving figures in the fire definitely look real.

And the longer everyone goes without acting, the more horrendous the screams become. They go from general screams of help to scathing yells, saying things like "Why won't you help us," and "you're leaving us to die" and "Murderers!"

The fire is starting to die down, but in its place there are many people, all looking like they had been burned. Some are familiar faces, to make it more painful, but those few people are filled in with hundreds of faceless figures, all staring down the group of four.]

[No...nonono...no this wasn't happening, there's no way it could be happening. Seimei was right, this had to be a hallucination...but it felt so real. He felt the flames die down...he saw the charred corpses in front of him; heard their biting accusations, why was it all so real?

Ippo's heart began to ache with palpable pain as he started to recognize some of the burnt faces...Takamura...Coach...his mother...but they were dead, Rin had told him his whole world was wiped out! How could...how could they be here? He dropped to his knees and put his hands over his ears, trying desperately to block out their chanting voices.]

Stop...please...I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to let anyone die! Forgive me everyone...please forgive me...!

[Much to Alucard's horror, the illusion - and he's becoming increasingly less certain that it is just that - is not just sight and sound, but even the unforgettable smell of burning human flesh. It's almost enough to make him physically ill... Almost. What little color he'd had in his skin to begin with was quickly draining out though, and he'd begun sort of withdrawing into himself when he spots someone all too familiar...

...And somehow, the burnt face of his mother staring accusingly at him brings a change that might seem rather counter to what one would expect in such a situation. He straightens up again. His face changes from the slightly pained look of one who is trying to remain calm to the deceptively calm look of someone who may be on the edge of losing their mind. The tone of his next words is edged with something dark and decidedly dangerous, despite how polite they seem.]

...You will forgive me if I am skeptical of the truth of your existence, but it has been no more than a few months since a succubus thought to use a trick very similar to this. If you wish to prove you are real, allow my mother to answer but one question: What is my name?

[ Dark eyes turned away from shambling abominations and towards Ippo over hsi shoulder. How strange to have anyone at his back, for any reason. Even with Hiromasa they had always done things very separately. But then neither of them were specialized in hand-to-hand arts. they knew them, but their strengths lay elsewhere.

Or had, he mused, looking down at his hands, then the burned and brittle bodies of Hiromasa, Mitsumushi, his mother...Kaoru. ]

...Kaoru? [ He whispered, barely audible over the crackling fire, gaze pinned on blackened, half-melted hair like sunset blotted out by ash. He swallowed hard, eyes burning before spilling over with tears.

He stepped forward, parting from Ippo a foot, two feet, hand raising, fingers outstretched in disbelief. His lips moved slowly in silent words before he stopped and drew back a step, hand withdrawing and eyes narrowing.

This was impossible. He sensed no magic. Kaoru was alive and hadn't come into the bog. Taisan had gone or he would have been here at his side. They had been overwhelmed by the plants. It had to be that. But a shared hallucination? Then again, what was the guarantee it was even really shared? Alucard appeared to be talking to his mother, but Seimei had no idea what his mother looked like. She had never been described. And he had never described anyone from his own past! ]

Makunouchi-san! [ He shouted, turning around and grabbing the young man's arm, tugging forcefully to turn him around and point at what he was seeing as Hiromasa, Kaoru, Mitsumushi and others. ]

What do you see? There. Do you see? What is that? who is that? Pay attention, man! Tell me what it is that you see! Who do you see?

[No one makes any move to stop Crona, so the meister steps forward, hand outstretched to touch one of the figures on the shoulder.]

... Maka?

[Maybe it's not really Maka.

What the hell are you doing? We need to get out of here, moron!]

[The horrible part of the lungblossom is that it takes all of these fears from each person's mind, so the visions do in fact know Alucard's real name. And they're going to be saying it, though only Alucard hears it. Everyone else hears exactly what they need to hear to make this even more horrible.

But finally, a path opens up, so everyone can run away if they would like. Though everyone is begging them to stay and save them, so running might be difficult.]

[Ippo felt himself being dragged up from the ground and was brought back to reality as Seimei shook him...why was he asking such a strange question? Couldn't he hear what they were saying? Couldn't he see? Unless...]

*Sniff* I...I see my friends...my coach. This isn't real, right? Please tell me this isn't real...

[At this point he sounded desperate beyond compare, so much so he almost missed the opening that had been made so they could escape; though his only articulation of this was to point over Seimei's shoulder and choke out a single word.]

Look!

[The sound of his name - his true name - is the emotional equivalent of driving a railroad spike through his chest and out the other side. All pretense of calm flees him, and for a moment all he can do is give a stare of grief. He stays like this until Ippo and Seimei's words finally filter through his mind. It's just enough to remind him that others - companions that are still living - are likely to need his help.]

...I'm so sorry mother... I'm so sorry I could not save you, now or then...

[He looks up in the direction Ippo is pointing.]

...I see. ...We must leave while we have the chance. There is nothing more we can do for those already passed.

[His utter lack of tone or anything resembling emotion is probably not a good sign.]

[ Seimei's eyes darkened, furious that he had succumb to something like this, and angrier still that he had not seen it for what it was. ]

If those are your friends and your 'coach' they look a great deal like my friends and my mother. This is not real. This is poison, crippling our ability to reason!

Alucard, Crona! [ He shouted, shaking his sleeves out and pointing towards the apparent exit, though he trusted it no more than he did anything else at the moment. ] This isn't real! This is the toxin. We're feeding our own fears. That isn't real, whatever it is you're seeing. We must push past this...[ He trailed off, staring at the others as he back-stepped towards the path. What if they weren't real either? What was the truth?]

[That's Maka. It really is. And the things Maka is saying block Crona's mind from anything else in the world. Crona can just stop here, burn and die in screaming agony because there is nothing left in the world.

Ragnarok, thankfully, is less prone to overwhelming emotions. He can hear the instructions to move, and because it ties in very nicely with his own sense of self-preservation, he snarls at Crona, voice audible to everyone in the group.]

Move your scrawny ass you damn idiot!

[Despite everything wrong with them, despite fracturing sanity and endless abuse and hateful words and actions tossed back and forth, they are meister and weapon, forever partners.

So Crona stands, still looking at Maka, still wide-eyed and more than ready to die right here, and moves towards the opening in the flames.]

[Running to escape is good, and the fires will eventually be left behind. But that just leads everyone deeper into the bog, where it's dark and creepy and quiet.

But as the group moves further in, everyone will start hearing whispers. Each person hears their own individual thing, but they all serve one purpose: to be malicious and cast doubt into everyone's mind.

This is what everyone hears:

Ippo: You're too weak. They all know you're weak, you can't do anything, they're going to leave you here to die. They're going to turn on you because you're useless to them.

Crona + Ragnarok: They all know. They know about the murders, and they know what a horrible person you are. Your mother sent them here to capture you. They're taking you to her. You have to kill them and run away, or you'll never be safe from her.

Seimei: They know what you are, and they're afraid of you. At the first sign of trouble they're going to turn on you. You need to get rid of them, before they have a chance to betray you. You'll never have anyone who trusts you, you're better off alone.

Alucard: They know who you are. You may think you're safe from the fires now, but they're taking you away to kill you like the animal you are. They know you're an unholy abomination, and they're going to stab you in the back at the first chance they get. You better stop them first, before they have a chance.]

[It's not terribly difficult to convince Alucard that the whispers may be speaking the truth; those same doubts had plagued him since the day his mother had burned as a witch. He doubts Ippo would have the stomach to kill him - the boy is far too straightforward for such a betrayal - but the other two (three? He's not quite sure how to categorize Ragnarok) are much more the type that will destroy that which they deem too great a threat. He certainly can't blame them if they've decided that something like him is too much of a liability; he is his father's son, and there will always be that part of him that instinctually views humans as a source of food.

Unless they back him into a corner with no other option to escape though, he will not kill them. He'd promised his mother he wouldn't, and that much he will hold onto, even running almost purely on the instinct to survive as he is at the moment.]

[ His skin crawled at those words, eyes darkening before going flat into that dead-pan expression he was so fond of, when not sporting his strange little smile. The onmyoji's ears burned under his long hair with anger and humiliation. Part of him - the logical and clever part with all the reasoning skill of a genius of his age - knew it was all fake. He knew it was a hallucination, but knowing and believing were two very different things, and the poison had riddled him with down like a worm-eaten apple.

Fear was not unknown to him. People had always feared him. Feared what he was, what he could become. And he agreed with the voice on some accounts. He was indeed unlikely to find someone that fully trusted him, and he was invariably likely to spend his many centuries to come very much alone. However what Seimei did not believe in was real impossibility when it came to the hearts of men. Just as he always believed he would be alone, he believed there was a possibility of something better. He saw it, on occasion, when Kaoru looked at him. Kaoru wasn't afraid of him. No one pretended that well when there was nothing to be gained from it.

So Seimei did the best thing he could think to, focusing on Kaoru. Kaoru's hair, like sunset. Kaoru's eyes, just a little too big, but always so warm and expressive. Kaoru's laughter, which Seimei was always shocked to find he could cause. If the boy had not turned on him yet there was little reason for him to do now, and he was always honest about what he was. The boy knew, of course he knew. Seimei had told him.

But the others? How much did they know? Why would they fear him? Alucard, who was neither truly dead nor alive and could survive on the blood of men, or Crona, strange, sad creature full of woe and plagued by another soul so close by? Only Ippo was human - only Ippo was what Seimei would consider an enemy on principle and the boy was so guileless Seimei couldn't imagine it to be true...

What did they have to gain from any of this? Why would they turn on him when there was nowhere to go and no one to protect but each other? was he a greater enemy than the end of all civilization? Would they honestly blame him for their troubles?

This was precisely why he avoided them in the first place!

Fury and confusion drove him on, ignoring the others as bitterness warred with reason and fear drew icy lines along his spine. If he did not look, if he tried not to listen...

These weren't his words. They weren't his thoughts. He was not an animal and had never behaved as one; now would not be the time to change that. He was still half human. He could never let himself forget that, however much he valued the demon in himself more. Humans could and sometimes did love the monsters. Fear could be swallowed, betrayal forgiven, trust earned and loneliness cured. These were inarguable truths he had to live by.

Gods but those words hurt A poison that he'd let rule so much of his life, keep him isolated. Until Hiromasa. Until Kaoru.

Kaoru. Sunset hair. Stumbling laughter. A thousand years of separation, meeting against all odds.

This bog and its twisted ensnarements could go straight to Hell.]

[Crona's mind is easy to twist at the best of times, too unstable to handle doubts well. Crona's been learning, of course, learning to use innate stubbornness and sharp temper to best advantage in navigating a world not seen through the fisheye lens of insanity or the gentle cruelty of Medusa's instructions.

But right now, with Maka's voice still ringing accusations in Crona's ears, with fire and confusion and horrified aching panic, Crona listens to the whispers without processing their words. Crona accepts what the whispers say without question.]

Lady Medusa's dead, isn't she? No, maybe not. They'd said she was dead before, but they were wrong. She might not be. She might be here. That could be right. Maybe she is here.

[Ragnarok laughs inside his meister's skull, inside his meister's veins. He's missed this paranoid instability and the possibility of violence.

Crona's mouth twists in a broken smile, eyes wild and voice a rambling whisper.]

Hey, Ragnarok? Should we? We should. [A hand held out to the side, fingers grabbing at the hilt of a sword that appears in a pulse of blood.

Ippo is first, Ragnarok's black blade slicing across and through, severing his spine just below the last set of ribs. Not a quick death, no, but it doesn't matter. When he goes down, maybe Crona will stab him through the skull later.

Crona knows a lot of ways to kill. Lady Medusa had given Crona a book, a picture book full of all the ways to kill, all the ways to chop and slice and stab.

Alucard will be next, Ragnarok's sharp edge aimed to slip through ribs and pierce the heart from behind.]

No...you're wrong, none of this is real...no one would do or even think things like that...!

[Ippo managed to choke out as he tried desperately to push the voices from his head as he moved along; but in the back of his mind... He'd always been weak, even in his strongest moments, there had always been a distinct distance between him and the strength he felt he needed. How annoying the others must have thought him...how useless, how unreliable...he didn't even trust himself with such things...how could they?

He wanted so desperately to play all of this off as nothing more than mere...just words with no meaning; but they struck deeper than any wound he'd received so far. Well, except for the sword sticking out of his chest of course. He'd been so preoccupied that he didn't even see it coming until he felt the fleeting pain before paralysis took over. All he could do was stare wide-eyed as he felt flat on the ground, his eyes searching for whomever would have confirmed his worst fears.]

W-w...ho...wh...y...?

day 117 :: Core Event

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And then the mist ability gets used for the first time

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