Bastion NPC (
bastionpc) wrote in
thebastion2013-10-07 10:21 pm
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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
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
no subject
*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!
no subject
...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.]
no subject
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?]
no subject
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.]
no subject
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.]
no subject
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.]
no subject
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.]
no subject
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 subject
[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...?
no subject
[The sharp scoff came from an all too familiar figure for Ippo. Short stature, long pointed ears, lashing tail, arms crossed over her small chest and red boot-clad foot tapping with impatience she stood before the fallen boxer with a scowl on her normally soft features. Blue flames danced along her body, flickering across her skin, and while she was certainly not real (because for once this person hadn't joined her survivor companions on the Skyway) for Ippo there would still likely be a near-suffocating sense of power radiating from the girl.]
Loser.
[Should he look up, her features would twist, showing even more anger and utter disgust. She even spat on the ground next to him - a truly insulting gestured - and lifted her boot up, pressing it down on the side of his head.]
Weak. Useless. Loser.
How could you ever protect anyone? You're worthless! No one would ever trust you to keep them safe! We don't need idiots like you here. We never did!
[Another scoff, and she crouched down, resting one arm on her knee while reaching over with a flame-covered hand, long nails digging in to his scalp as she pulled him up by his hair.]
Do us all a favor. Go die.
no subject
Instead he took it all in forced silence, tears washing down his face in a steady stream as any fight he had left drained from his eyes. Even as he woke from his dream; his eyes may be now open, but they were as dead as a dolls. No life could be found beyond his pulse...he didn't move, he didn't speak, he didn't even acknowledge the fact that he was awake. In his mind...all he could hear were Rin's words on an endless loop...reminding him of just how useless he was.
If anyone saw fit, he would need to be carried back by someone; in his head, he'd all but done what Rin had asked of him.]
And then the mist ability gets used for the first time
He doesn't seem surprised to see it's Crona now that he finally allows himself enough time to think about it.]
...Of course it would be you.
no subject
Hmmmmmm.
[The teen's voice is distracted, no sign of pain.]
Ragnarok's hungry, you know? He's noisy when he's hungry.
no subject
Ippo went down under Crona's attack and the onmyoji felt a flicker of regret for not getting to know the boy better. Then the damaged creature turned on Alucard and things started to get more complicated. Seimei was well aware of Taisan's interest in the half-living creature, and a small, cold, calculating and practical part of him felt that Alucard's demise would mean his shikigami would be less distracted and inclined to attempt disobedience. A greater part felt it necessary to reach out in aid to a fellow hybrid. The greatest part of all, insisted he flee.
For whatever erason, his magic had escaped his use entirely, and in order to get to the root of the issue, survival was key. Alucard was no slouch in combat, he could take care of himself. He wasn't even certain the man could die, so it stood to reason that he - who was most certainly vulnerable to death and deathlike symptoms - should live to fight another day. Particularly if he was o warn the others about Crona's madness and betrayal that could affect them all.
So he did what any smart man in his position would do.
He ran.
no subject
[He prepares to dodge or parry if need be. Crona is not human, as far as he can tell. That means it would not be a problem if he needs to kill them for his own survival, right? That would be alright, wouldn't it Mother?]
no subject
I want to kill you. [The blade in Crona's hand buzzes, sonic vibrations tearing at the air.]
You won't take me back to her. I won't let you do that.
no subject
[In other words, come at him bro.]
no subject
[The blade bears blunt teeth in a bright red mouth, and Crona steps forward, striking out at Alucard.]
no subject
I do not know your mother, nor is it my business to take you to her.
[He rushes the teen in hopes of getting a solid hit in.]
no subject
You're a liar. I'll let Ragnarok eat you. [Yeah, that mouth on the sword is drooling. It opens wide and screams, a high-pitched noise that tears the air and makes ears bleed. The sheer vibration of the sound blurs the edges of the blade as Crona swings again and again.]