Mission 015 Log

[etrayamods]

Mission Summary

Genre: Dystopian / Horror

Premise: Echo can no longer detect what's happening in Pollux, and sends Etrayans to investigate. In Pollux, cut off from contact with Aurora and unable to return until whatever's causing the interference is removed, the Etrayans find things have really gone to hell...

Tone: Intense, heavy, and serious.

Objectives: Determine what's happening in Pollux and install a new A.I. if necessary.

We have no need of other worlds

Arrival
The Etrayans arrive in an uninhabited apartment complex, layered with dust and echoingly empty. The layout is often odd in places in ways that might normally be humorous -- a toilet in the kitchen, one unit with five closets side-by-side off of a single main room -- but now take on an almost sinister, unnerving cast. Nothing seems to make sense in this building.

There's remnants of there being residents once in the more livable layouts, but even that has some strangeness to it: identical baskets of men's hygiene supplies left in every unit, inhabited or not; half-eaten meals abandoned in a hurry, rotting on dining tables; or robots that look much like Etraya's companion bots slumped over in place, crumpled on the floor like puppets with cut strings. There's some supplies to be found and scavenged, and it's empty enough that it's a safe place to start.

Exploring the City
Or they can head outside into the central green space of the city, an unsettling lumpy mound looming in the middle of it off in the distance. The park is bordered on all sides by gleaming metal buildings that tower overhead, all in similar states of disrepair from the one they'd just exited.

Pretty quickly, they'll accomplish one of their primary objectives: discovering what happened to Castor. There's a human man wandering the fringes of the park, scouting for disabled bots that he, under great duress, is trying to repair. The enforcers leave him alone -- they know who he is -- and he can be approached and spoken with.

Maybe he has some answers. Or maybe the other Polluxians left around the city do.

Either way, Castor has become a full, organic human through magical means, and it's obvious they're going to need to install that new A.I. after all. Before long, a base camp is established by the Etrayans in a nearby pod-style hotel, and the mission is underway in earnest.

Dead as Dead
Approaching the mound in the center of the park, characters will come to the creeping realization that it is a pile of corpses, some of them recognizable on inspection. The bodies have been dragged there and left on display as a taunt and a threat. They've been killed in a variety of ways, most of them gruesome but some subtle. In all cases, their souls have been pulled out and obliterated, leaving them completely incapable of resurrection or reanimation.

There's evidence here and there that some Polluxians might have approached to try to take some for proper burials, but the corpse pile is as much bait as it is anything else -- the enforcers and undead regularly stop by on their patrols to check if someone's lingering.

Opposition
Those roaming the city will encounter two types of opposition.

Enforcers are former Polluxians who have either willingly signed on to be part of the new regime or have been coerced into doing so to keep themselves or their loved ones from the fate on display in the park. They come in the full array of possible characters who can be recruited by Echo.

The undead that assist them as minions are not the shambling idiots common in media: they're bodies animated by some other force, the original soul pulled out but left intact, hovering beside the victim to those that can sense its presence.

All of them, to a one, smile widely, a fierce grin belying their joy at their tasks. Though they have no superhuman strengths, they also feel no pain, and if cut off at the knees they will pull themselves with fingertips across the floor to continue to seek their targets, thrilled all the while.

These dead, too, can be recognized as castmates -- or perhaps as another version of yourself -- but if you speak their name out loud to them, perhaps in shock or perhaps to plead, they slump lifeless to the ground, the thread to their soul cut. It soon becomes obvious that this is one source of the corpses in the pile. Laying them to true rest will take something more than talking or violence.

This is another lie

The Tower
The other source of corpses in the park is the magically hidden tower, and those that sneak in or are captured and brought inside will find that out. Characters can be forced into becoming either contestants or enforcers in a series of macabre games, and their role can switch round to round. Note: players are welcome to make up their own game scenarios. Those listed below are provided as starting points and ideas.

For contestants, they will experience complete power nerfing, but those that win make their way up one level in the tower, game by game. Maybe eventually they'll see what's at the top, if they ever make it that far. Those that lose can die, face mutilation, or some other consequence like reliving their worst memory in real-time.

For enforcers, keeping the contestants in line and running the games might earn them the goodwill of the person running the show. They can be as creative as they'd like with how to keep things running; by no means does death need to be the only possible penalty. Or maybe if they act out, trying to help contestants when they shouldn't be, they'd attract their ire...

Game Ideas

Blindman's Bluff: One person is blindfolded and must find and tag another player. The blindman has shoes, whereas everyone else has had theirs confiscated. The floor is covered in glass.

Duck, Duck, Viper: This game is set up like an ordinary game of Duck, Duck, Goose with one notable addition to the fox, ducks and geese. One player amongst you will be a Viper, holding a knife. Should the Fox accidentally select the Viper as a Goose, the Viper will then chase the Fox around the circle and attempt to stab them. The Viper wins if they are successful in this.

Tortilla Game: Both contestants put water in their mouths. Take turns slapping one another with a variety of objects on the table to try to either make them laugh or induce pain and spit all the water. The objects are: a tortilla, a table tennis paddle, a deflated soccer ball, a ruler, your own open palm.

Red Light, Green Light: Classic! The giant robot turns its head alternatingly between the tree and the field. When the robot is looking at the tree, run towards the finish line. When the robot’s head is facing the field, stop and so not move! Under penalty of being shot, but not necessarily to death.

Sardines in a Can: One person is “it” and has to find the sardines. Everyone else runs and hides. If you pick the same spot as someone, you must either be making noise the entire time, or stab one other. Try not to be found by the hungry fisherman -- a guard with a gun.

Inchworm: One person must get on the other’s shoulders. The top person can only use their arms, the bottom can only use their legs. Scale a ladder as a chamber fills with water. Only one person is allowed to leave the exit, or both people must lose a hand or a foot.

... We need mirrors

Museum of Multidimensional Art
Searching through the city will eventually yield the location of the server farm: the special collections section of the Museum of Multidimensional Art. Castor might not know how to care for living beings (including himself, now) but he appreciates their creations, and the museum is an elaborate, sprawling structure with myriad exhibits.

The building itself is a vision of modern architecture, an art piece of its own, and the slanted doors open into a wide foyer with an arching thirty foot ceiling. From it is suspended a wire sculpture, each piece arranged separately so that standing from different positions in the foyer creates a different visual impression from each angle. Is that a bird, or a whale, or a baby? The overall effect is something like cloud-watching with wires.

Other pieces on display vary widely with examples from across every dimension, such as a framed photograph of a dress that some might see as blue and black, others white and gold, and other interesting exhibits. There are, of course, plenty done in more traditional mediums, but even those tend to be experimental in some way.

Special Collections
Special collections is located in the basement levels beneath the museum. An elevator provides access to those with either a keycard or the abilities to hack past the security system, and then characters are presented with a massive open-air chain-link framework serving as a gated wall, protected by its own locks. These no keycard will pass, and must be dismantled with other means.

Beyond is, at first, actual art. Several levels have nothing but vertical slide-out racks containing carefully preserved paintings and other works, and one must wander past them to encounter the final door before multiple floors of stairs that descend to the server farm. It's impossible to miss the transition, as the final door is a chambered air-lock they must pass through into a space fully devoid of air.

Heart of a City
Similar to Aurora's server floors for those who've been there, there's an additional sub-basement level with machinery for constructing companion bots, the equipment non-functional and utterly silent in the vacuum. Without air to carry vibrations, sound is impossible -- hopefully, anyone pursuing this has another way to communicate.

One more level down is a massive white-walled cavern, the stairs simply ending, cutting off abruptly above a pool of cool blue liquid stretching out before them. Bulky inert vines of mixed organic and inorganic matter wind across the ceiling and down the walls toward the liquid.

Set in a wall to the side of the stair's landing is a more conventional computer terminal, and a place to key in commands. A softly blinking red light indicates emergency. Opening the briefcase Aurora had provided with the associated keychip reveals not a hard drive but a mechanical seed resembling the winding vines.

Booting up the terminal will prompt a series of questions, and for those with enough computer knowledge to move through them, ultimately, instructions: throw the seed into the pool.

❬ MISSION NOTES ❭

📌 — Please make sure to use the major events comment thread specifically to announce character actions that have a significant impact on the mission outcome or other characters. In this mission, the outcome will be largely determined based on events reported here. Please also report if your character dies while in Pollux.

📌 — This is a meta-plot heavy mission with opt-in heavy / intense content. It will last until there is enough IC activity to determine how it ends. The mission wrap-up post will summarize actions taken by characters and what the ultimate outcome is.

📌 — For all questions relating to this mission, please refer to the mission queries comment on this post. Other questions can be directed to the FAQ.

🔵FULL NAVIGATION🔵

Comments

NPC THREADS.

[etrayamods]

Assumed Questions / Encounters

[etrayamods]

If you'd like to assume an encounter with an NPC rather than thread it out, let us know here and we'll tell you what they'd find out from it!

Safehouse | FORT BADASS | La Resistance

[pullit]

Shortly after arriving in Pollux, the Spardas locate and secure a pod apartment building for use as a safehouse. Etrayans and Polluxians needing a safe place to rest or hide from Enforcers are welcome to crash at Fort Badass.

Basic features of the camp:

✨ Each unit contains six pods and a common area that functions essentially like a living room.
✨ The pods themselves can comfortably fit 1-2 people for sleeping/lounging. More than that, it'll be pretty cramped/tight. They come equipped with a small television, a shelf for personal effects, and a privacy shudder that can be electronically locked.
✨ Lockers with numbers that correspond to the pods can be used to hold more personal effects than what could fit on the shelves (like clothes, toiletries, etc.) just outside each unit.
✨ Showers/bathrooms and dining/kitchen are communal spaces with one per floor to serve multiple units.
✨ There is a community garden on the rooftop that has become overgrown after the bots stopped working, but can still provide some food for those willing to forage.
✨ Feel free to make up whatever other amenities you'd like on other floors! It's an apartment building after all.

Some ideas of things to do related to the base (but not an exhaustive list!):

✨ Finding supplies. Feel free to break and enter into pods, lockers, other amenities, etc. to go looking for more supplies, or do supply runs outside of the apartment building itself. Food, water, medical supplies, etc. are all fair game to go looking for!
✨ Daily living tasks. Taming the community garden, preparing meals, getting laundry done, tending to those suffering ill effects from the legally distinct cephalopod games, etc. For when you need/want a little breather from all the Horror or just need time for it to marinate a little further.
✨ Rally the troops. Base camp can be a perfect place to coordinate efforts IC. Or maybe you make an agreement to meet back up at camp and someone doesn't show when they were supposed to. There's a lot going on out in the city, so perhaps a search party is in order.
✨ Enforcers keep out. Could there be an imposter among us? Maybe! Take up a watch shift. Snoop around to determine if someone is playing pretend to undermine efforts by those resisting and your fellow Etrayans.
✨ Enforcers do crime. Hey enforcers? Feel free to fuck around!! I won't tell if you won't...

As for the Spardas themselves:

With a background in organizing logistics for emergency shelters/food pantries/what have you, Nero ends up the de facto leader of what he has dubbed "Fort Badass." He is present to assign tasks for volunteers, or to serve as a capable bodyguard/escort for anyone needing to go out into the city. AKA he's the questgiver/thread buddy for anyone who would like one. (GG notes that Nero will deny he is in charge if asked, even though he clearly is.)

Vergil despises interfacing with people, so will be working as Base Mom preparing meals and taking care of other cleaning tasks. (Crystal notes that this should not stop you from bothering him with questions or offers of assistance just to make him squirm.)

Dante will split his time between supply runs, patrolling, helping people craft weapons out of whatever they find, and offering combat pointers. (Luce notes that these may be unhelpful to most people not martial savants like Dante, but he'll do his best.)

All three Spardas are combat ready and will defend the base if necessary. 💪

Feel free to use this comment to thread under, or to borrow Fort details for your own purposes elsewhere. Want to plot? Hit us up here, especially for any major occurrences (ie: please do not cause major destruction/disruption/destroy the fort without asking. :) )

Grace Ashcroft 🩸 Resident Evil

[thepassword]

🚿 r&r

Grace doesn't know how long hot water is going to realistically last in this building with the Etrayans now occupying it and without proper maintenance, but she's fairly confident they will understand when she takes her turn at an undisturbed hot shower when it's on implicit offer. Standing under the spray in the private stall, Grace lets out a soft sigh of relief before closing her eyes. Realistically speaking, she doesn't stand there idly for very long, but it feels like an eternity after so much time being constantly on the move, constantly vigilant for sounds and signs of trouble. Who knew life's simple pleasures could feel so extravagant and luxurious? After those few moments standing there, Grace begins scrubbing off the layers of dirt and grime that have accumulated on her skin and in her hair. The scent of the soap and shampoo aren't unpleasant, but they do feel some what at odds with one another given the shampoo is clearly geared for women while the soap is one of those all-in-one soaps that young men who don't know any better tend to buy.

She's relaxed by the time she's done, her skin now lightly pink from the heat of the water. Grace reaches a hand out to pull the towel on the hook just outside the stall inside to begin drying off, and it's not until she's halfway through that it dawns on her: she doesn't have another change of clothes. Grace despairs slightly at the prospect of putting the clothes she left in a small pile back on, but it's not like she can go wandering around this place in nothing but a towel.

Wrapping aforementioned towel around herself, Grace pulls back the curtain and steps out of the stall to where she had left her clothes. Picking them up, she lets out another quiet sigh, privately chiding herself for not thinking to ask for a change of clothes or if there was some place she could wash these ones off.

She looks up at the sound of someone else entering the communal bathroom and quickly looks back down at her clothes. She should just take them and head back to the pod she's being allowed to use, but... A fresh change of clothes would be nice. Or at least letting these wash. She could tolerate a towel that long at least.

"Um, e-excuse me?" she asks, glancing back up and trying to chalk the warmth in her face to the hot shower she just took and not her embarrassing mistake. "Do you know where I could get more clothes?"

❓ twenty questions

"Sure, I'd be happy to," she says, nodding a little. "Ah, should we...?"

Grace gestures over towards seating, uncertain of how long the conversation is meant to go on for exactly, but thinking it might be better to do it while sitting. Whether she's been caught in the process of getting herself some food, a cup of coffee, or simply doing what she can to help out around the camp, Grace readily makes herself available to Etrayans who may have questions about Pollux or Castor. Or about her, although that seems unlikely to her.

Although sincere in the small, shy way she smiles, it also likely communications that she's not exactly confident that she will be the best source of information.

📝 ooc;

Prose or brackets is fine by me and I will happily match you. Feel free to riff on the above prompts or make something else up entirely. I'm able to be reached via PM or plurk (rebreather) if you need/want to run anything by me. Otherwise, you can also hit up Grace's plotting comment for more info or to ask me questions!

john constantine — dc.

[lastrequests]

Dead as Dead.
mentions of death, the dead, corpses.

( there's a man standing there in front of the pile of the dead. a man who, from all angles, looks rather unbothered by all this... or maybe it's that he's used to it. another day that ends in y around here? or something else? either way, he's there, smoking a cigarette and flicking the ash away from the mound of corpses as he eyes them. whether he's looking for something — or someone — his gaze drifts from the mangled bodies to the guest he finds himself with, puff of smoke leaving his lips as he breathes out from a drag of his cigarette. )

I know what you're thinking. ( a beat, long enough to take another drag. ) Damn, I just missed one hell of a party.

( yeah. there's some dark humor for you alright. )

Magic Man.

( around pollux, if one looks close enough, strange sigils [or maybe familiar?] are either carved or drawn above certain and around entryways to seemingly rundown and abandoned spots. absolutely nothing about these spots look appealing or as if there might be anything worth looking into if the outer appearance of them is anything to go by. crumbling, broken down, abandoned in every sense of the word.

however.

if one should think screw it and decide to take a look inside, they'll find the place to actually not be in such a state of disarray. or. well. not as bad as everything else seems to be around here. there's light — stacks and stacks and stacks of books left everywhere, a few artifacts and bottles of this and that scattered about, a fire going off in the corner and more of those sigils carved and drawn around the entryways of the place and along a few of the baseboards. there at the table, an open book with scribblings that are a little on the magical side of things next to an empty glass of something and an ashtray that has one too many crushed cigarettes in it.

that's when john here comes into the room, cracking open a bottle of something alcoholic when he catches sight of his... guest... right. brow raised, he's slow to look around them before he's eyeing his unexpected company. )

This isn't about car insurance or something, is it?

( and with that, he heads over to the table and pours himself another glass right there. no, he doesn't offer any either. )

Roaming Dead.
mentions of corpses, the dead.

( maybe you've come across the dead here in pollux. maybe you've found yourself in a pickle with them. you know. how no matter how many times you hack and slash at them, they just seem to keep coming? it's pretty annoying. also a little on the freaky side, yeah. but off to the side there, leaning against a broken lamppost and lighting up a cigarette there between his lips is a man in a long coat and tie, enjoying a long puff for himself before he breathes the smoke out and eyes your little predicament. )

You know that whole... thing... ( as he gestures around you with cigarette between his fingers. ) ...you're doing there? Not really going to work.

( funny how he seems so unbothered with all this. almost as if he's been through this a few times himself. almost as if he's a resident here in pollux tossing a newcomer a bit of advice. or... commentary. whatever. )

ETC.

john's the Resident Magic Man of Pollux and has been here for about a year now. plotting comment for him + his info is found HERE with his permissions/warnings HERE in terms of his character and canon which, while unlikely to come up here, still putting them out there for just in case moments. also if you prefer prose, i'll match. feel free to drop a comment to his plotting top-level or shoot me a DM if you want to plot or discuss anything. ✨

Roaming Dead

[will_chase_balls]

[Dwayne is swinging a bit of broken off pole that looks like it came from a chain link fence, beating the undead mercilessly to no effect. As he fights, his body instinctively changes, his teeth and nails becoming longer and sharper, his ears getting more of a point.

Thrust. Wack. Growl. He delivers a fierce and brutal beatdown that should have taken these corpses out of the fight, but they keep coming. When the guy nearby says it's not going to work, Dwayne lets out a pathetic, dog-like whine.]

Then how?

[This always worked on the reanimated corpses back home.]

maya fey | ace attorney

[feytality]

i. dead as dead;

[ maybe there's a familiar face here, in the pile of corpses. maybe you're just being nice and here to bury them. maybe you're here for some other reason. ]

[ maya is also here, and she's got her eyes closed -- she's frowning, and seems to be praying, with her head bowed and her hands together. ]

[ this is not a great idea, it won't be long before she attracts attention! you might want to tell her as much, before she gets caught. she's really engrossed in this. ]

[ or maybe you're an enforcer yourself, coming to nab her. ]

ii. opposition;

[ you've run into one of the undead enforcers. you're about to fight them, run away, anything -- when suddenly a five foot nothing girl is grabbing at your sleeve briefly, to try to get your attention. ]

Wait!

[ the enforcers won't pause, but she will attempt to tug you back, out of swiping range ]

This isn't right. Their soul.... it's not in their body. It's tethered to them.

[ unless you're spiritually sensitive, you'd be within your rights to think she's crazy. do you? ]

Let me try something.

iii. the tower;

[ red light green light is about to begin. this is the second round of games -- so whether you're a contestant or an enforcer, you know what you're in for. it's life or death. ]

[ if you're one of the kidnapped, you will find a five foot nothing girl sticking out her arm in front of you protectively. ]

We got this. Just.... follow my lead, okay? And stay behind me.

[ is she planning to shield you with her body? okei maya. ]

[ if you're an enforcer, she approaches you, hands balled up into small fists. ]

Let these people go. They didn't do anything for you.

[ or maybe you find her later, where she's been stabbed in the arm by a knife, trying hurriedly to stop the bleeding. it's not going very well, it's spurting everywhere and she's just covering it with one hand for now, trying to tie a tourniquet made from ripped clothing with no luck. ]

[ help her? hinder her? mock her? ]

iv. heart of a city;

[ you're not alone here! you're accompanied by maya, who is limping and clutching her arm. regardless, she seems determined to proceed, as she hobbles with you. there's no air for sound, so communication is difficult, but she taps you with her good arm, then points towards the side. there's nothing visible right away, (so you'd be justified to think she's crazy), but if you keep looking, a towering undead enforcer will come into view. ]

[ and they're between you and the computer terminal. oopsie. ]

[ what now? ]

v. wildcard;

[ plotting comment is here! maya will also be around fort badass, helping out, and etc. please feel free to ask me for a custom starter or hit me with anything, i'll roll with it ]

ghost BUSTERS (tristan + vax)

[feytality]

[ maya is somewhere in between tristan and vax, as the only one of the three who isn't a combatant. she's ready to kick and punch if she needs to, little hands balled up into fists, but her focus is on the spirits. ]

You guys can see them, right? Their spirits...

[ the three of them are surrounded, so there are plenty of souls around. ]

What's the plan? I can try to channel them...

Grace Ashcroft 🩸 Resident Evil

[thepassword]

🧟‍♂️ city of the dead

"Oh shit!" Grace winces and squeezes her eyes shut tight at the clatter of noise as cans topple down from the shelf, landing on the stainless steel cooking surface below. She's gotten good at moving through the city relatively undetected and scrounging for supplies where she can, but mistakes and accidents still happen. However, this isn't all that ideal for her to suddenly make a ton of noise like that considering just how close in proximity this building is to the park. She gives it a second before she can hear movement outside the restaurant's kitchen. Whispering a few more successive shits to herself, Grace quickly gets as many of the cans as she can grab into her bag and zips it up.

Scanning the room, she ducks around the island. She doesn't know what's outside the door, but she wants to have sight on whoever (or whatever) it is before they see her. Grace sets the backpack down beside her—also out of sight—and pulls her handgun out from a pouch in the front. She tries to take slow, steadying breaths as she waits on the approaching footsteps, worrying her lower lip nervously.

🎨 preserved

Grace treads carefully through the racks of artwork carefully preserved and stored in the lower levels. It seems like only the doors are serving as security on this particular level as has been the case for the past few, but Grace doesn't exactly feel like testing the theory by wandering too far. Who knows what sort of security measures are in place if a silent alarm were to be tripped and what guarantee is that it might be still operational in the manner intended with everything else in such disarray and disrepair? Still, there isn't much to do down here while someone else takes a crack at trying to get past the security system. So, she might as well see what exactly Castor has deemed worthy of protecting unlike the lives of the people in his charge.

Not much of it is particularly appealing to Grace, but it becomes less so the more she dwells on that particular thought. Her expression grows increasingly pensive.

"Is it really better?" she asks at some point when not the only one looking at the eclectic collection on this level. She clarifies quickly. "I-In Etraya, I mean..."

📝 ooc;

Prose or brackets is fine by me and I will happily match you. Feel free to riff on the above prompts or make something else up entirely. I'm able to be reached via PM or plurk (rebreather) if you need/want to run anything by me. Otherwise, you can also hit up Grace's plotting comment for more info or to ask me questions!

city of the dead

[maximumlegend]

Even if Fabian may not be one of the people Grace is fearing will find her, it does make sense for her to have out her gun - because the young man appearing there seems armed as well, holding a sword in one of his hands.

He does lower it the second he spots Grace and realizes she doesn't look like any of the enforcers or undead moving around these parts. Especially not her facial expression, so worried and tense. Like she's afraid of something, rather than trying to hunt something down.

Fabian does take a few steps closer to her. There's still some distance between them, but he apparently cares more about covering some distance so he doesn't have to be loud to make himself known here under their current circumstances - more than he fears her gun, considering how brazen he's being about it.

"Did you make all that noise? I thought it was one of those guys."

Benedikta Harman | Final Fantasy XVI | Pollux Enforcer

[bedwarm]

Exploring the City

Up above the park where Castor tries in vain to save the robots, a woman stands on the corner of the rooftop, watching with a sniper’s eye. She makes no effort to be inconspicuous. Her skirts are shingled with pieces of copper, and they catch the light as the wind takes them. Whoever she is, she didn’t come here from Etraya.

The building is unlocked, the hotel floors within confusing but easily passed through. The steel door to the rooftop is left ajar — more specifically it has been gouged so severely by some massive claw that it no longer closes properly.

The woman watches each and every attempt to talk to Castor, her eyes narrowed as if something foul has been thrust under her nose.


Dead as Dead

It takes some effort to arrange the dead in a way that says: this is a warning. A great pile of corpses can be impressive, sure, but it is also anonymous, horrific only by sheer volume. One might as well gaze upon a wall of them, and the impact would be the same.

And so the bodies must be known for who they were, once. Friends, loved ones, comrades in arms. Several enforcers drag corpses around by the ankles and wrists, or sometimes with a fistful of hood or cape or long hair. They are arranged in rough lines, clear enough for identification. Let the sprawl say more than the height of the pile.

But there’s one enforcer who isn’t dragging around corpses. She smokes instead, a long pipe that sends tendrils of smoke rising into the night air. At times she barks orders or criticizes enforcers who are slower or clearly unhappy about the task at hand. Be grateful, she says, that you aren’t one of them. That could still change.

If an Etrayan veers close, however, or dares poke their head out, she calls out, playful:

“Looking for someone?”


Duck, Duck, Viper

The games do get tiresome, especially when people hesitate. They always hesitate. No one wants to die, or bleed, or hurt, but that’s just pushing off the inevitable.

She seizes the Fox by the collar, her grip tight, her strength far eclipsing her frame. She wrests the Fox off their path, preventing them from fleeing, and turns them to the Viper.

“Do it,” she says, an undercurrent of glee in the order. “Finish it and you move on.”


Trauma Refresher

Closed to Gustave, Maelle and Lune. CW for murder and mayhem.

The militia calls itself the Expedition. Some Expedition they are, a pathetic company of two men and a woman. They go around Pollux in their matching uniforms, and they’re always talking, bragging, even, about what they’re going to accomplish. About a better world. “It doesn’t have to be this way,” they’d say. “We don’t have to let this happen to Pollux.” It feels smug. It feels endless, too.

Or it used to, anyway.

The woman is sprawled on her side now, jaw slack and blood oozing out of her open mouth. The blood pools all around her and soaks so thickly into her collar that the fabric is a brilliant red. Her death had been quick, and disappointingly so, courtesy the blade slipping right through the wishbone of her jaw and into her brain stem, and then right back out again with a sharp tug.

The man some feet away was less fortunate. He lays on his back with three deep channels dug from shoulder to hip, a hand still clutched across his belly. He’d tried to contain his spilling guts. Fruitless, really, but at least she could admire the instinct. That’s all, though. She didn’t like anything else about him.

The last one is still alive, but just barely. Benedikta has him pinned under her boot, planted square between his shoulder blades. He’s gurgling. He can’t get air in or out properly. It hisses out the hole in his chest when she shifts her weight, and he is trying to fight the leverage she has on him, but he just can’t. Not without air. Not with his vision starting to blur.

Her attention moves to her blade, which she swishes to the side, sending much of the blood on it flying off. She brings it back up to inspect it. It seems fine. Good. It’s such a piss-off when it comes out with a chip.

Then she turns. More of the black-and-gold uniforms. Her gaze roves over them, amber-eyed. Blood is splattered up the front of her leather bodice, over white feathers and pale skin. Her voice drips with disdain, and she sighs.

“More of you?”

Wildcard

[ooc: Let me make all your violent dreams come true. Available for ass kickings, big nasty fights, and making your character participate in the games. You can get on touch on plurk or discord at “victoryfanfare”]

time for trauma!

[demainvient]

Everything feels wrong on Pollux – sometimes subtly so, but more often not. It reminds Gustave of those first hours on the Continent, wandering in a shock-induced haze, each staggered step carrying him along paths he didn't choose so much as stumble across. It's the sounds, partly – small as the population is on Etraya, there's a constant bustle through the days and well into the nights. There are windows spilling over with light, voices drifting into the streets from restaurants and bars and apartments, arguments and plans debated over the network. It feels alive.

Pollux feels like that shattered shore where they'd first landed. From the moment they'd stepped onto this damaged world, he'd felt it like the sand of that beach shifting under his boot. They're all on high alert, focused as they split up and head off to take stock. This, too, feels like the Continent: there's no going back until someone wins through.

The feeling is so strong that when he first catches sight of a familiar black-and-gold uniform, it only registers as correct. More Expeditioners, scattered where they fell... but these bodies aren't the dull, lifeless gray of stone. He recognizes that silky fall of ashen-brown hair, that dark hand clasped over a still-vibrant purple vest.

Gustave's heart stutters, and then he's moving, falling forward into a sprint that has his boots hitting the ground hard enough to spray pebbles and gravel behind him. "Lucien–"

But his two fallen friends aren't alone. There's someone else, heeled boot jammed into the back of a uniform coat so familiar Gustave feels the shock of it like someone had caught him on a clothesline. She turns with idle annoyance, but his hands are already filling with the golden sparks of his chroma, his gaze shifting from her to the man on his belly beneath her and back again. Her mouth has hardly finished making the soft 'o' shape of you when he draws a bead on her with his pistol and fires, jaw set so hard it hurts. "Get away from him!"

Clark Kent | Superman 2025

[newsbeat]

around & about

[Clark doesn't waste any time getting the lay of the land in Pollux. The apartment complex is...questionable, but not meant to be a long-term home, so as soon as he's got his bearings there he moves to do the same in regards to the rest of the city. Speed and flight give him an advantage, so he's back before long and quickly scribbles a basic map down on notepaper to help out any of the Etrayans who haven't ventured out yet and might find it helpful.

He makes further circuits around the city between other, more concrete tasks. Clark doesn't hesitate to lend a hand to Etrayans in conflict with the Enforcers or their undead minions, whether or not it's someone he knows. When he spots what's going on in the park, he touches down there with more than a little trepidation; he knows without having to get too close that this is a pile of dead bodies, a tremendous waste of life. And some of them are not as unfamiliar as the Etrayans might like; he offers a gentle hand on the shoulder for anyone he knows who might be confronting horrible recognition.]

You okay?

the tower

[Everything goes to hell when Clark ends up in the hidden tower, playing games that aren't fun or funny at all, they just hurt people. He can tell immediately that all his powers are neutralized and that's...bad. He'd be more panicked if this were the first time, but at least he's got the experience of the fog in his back pocket; still, this might be worse. But he's not the only one here, and that might make the difference.]

Hey. Feel like a team-up? It might make the difference between both of us getting out here okay or not.

[He's not going to die. He's not going to allow anyone else to die, either. Clark simply refuses to consider either possibility.]

multidimensional museum

[The Museum of Multidimensional Art is the closest thing to fun that Clark has in Pollux. There's no real relaxation, not with how grim the entire city feels, but he's still fascinated by seeing art from everywhere. There's stuff he likes, stuff he doesn't, stuff he never would have considered art. He can let his shoulders down, a little, and then go back to the grind of the mission. They're here for a reason — but the art reminds him of people, who are the reason any of this is worth it. He wouldn't mind some company.]

[ooc - wild cards also welcome, plotting comment is here]

around and about.

[lastrequests]

( he's crouched down there in front of the mound of corpses, small notebook flipped open to a page he's scribbling something on with a pen that's on its last legs. he's shaking at it furiously — trying to squeeze out the last bits of ink in it he can, when he feels that hand touch his shoulder and, brow raised, he glances up.

flying man in a blue suit with a red cape? sure. he's seen weirder. both here and back home.

it's a face he doesn't recognize — means he's not one of them here on pollux what with castor being... like he is right now. guess someone decided to bring the cavalry in looks like. at the moment, he's without a smoke, hands busy with his scribbling notes but that all comes to a pause what with him having unexpected company now and all.

brow still raised, he glances off to the mound he's in front of there before he's looking back up to big blue here. )

Well, shit. I didn't think grief counsellors came looking like you.

Keyleth l The Legend of Vox Machina

[aershari]

Arrival:

Is it just me, or is this layout a little....strange?

[It's odd, right? Not just her that thinks so? Keyleth muses more to herself but does note any others nearby that happened to be in the same apartment as her when she first arrives. She starts, initially, before crouching down to check when she comes across one of the robots. She doesn't know nearly enough to be able to fix it or anything, but it is still instinctive to want to try and do something. As if her healing would work here on them.]

Opposition:

This is just creepy....!

[Between the unnerving piles of bodies, and the undead situation. Not one she hasn't had experience with, but this seems different to the situation with the Briarwoods. Keyleth instinctively tries to summon sunlight when faced with the undead, since it had been effective back home. Whether it would be here against these undead is another story, but even so. She tries. Wants to do something.]

Blindman's Bluff:

Ow!

[Keyleth winces when she steps and finds there's glass on the floor. She instinctively attempts to Wildshape to a bird so she can fly, so she can get some height and check her feet. But she can't. That immediately has her in a panic, her green eyes wide as she glances around. Noting any others, someone with a blindfold. Should she help them? Try to take it off? Of course, she is more focused on the others.]

Um, are you guys okay?

Sardines:

[Keyleth hides, unaware, initially, if anyone else might be using that same hiding spot or not. She just knows the basics that you are supposed to hide and hope you aren't found. She might not quite check well enough to realize if someone else is there, too. Trying to be quick and quiet as she slips in somewhere before taking a breath and glancing around to check if she might be alone or not.]

Museum:

I'm....not even sure exactly what this is?

[Keyleth tilts her head, glancing in confusion at the balloon animal. Or the Pez dispensers. There isn't quite anything like this back home, so, of course, she is not quite sure what to make of these strange things. This is supposed to be art? Apparently? Keyleth can tell the balloon animal seems fragile, so she pauses from actually reaching out to touch it instinctively.]

museum

[maximumlegend]

I don't think it's important to know what it is.

[ Granted, Fabian's idea of art is.. a little tacky, given what he's inherited taste-wise from his family. But even he can tell that the stuff in here is outright weird, rather than normal art.

But of course a place this weird and terrible wouldn't even have a normal museum. He's just surrendered himself to the idea at this point, frowning a little as he's staring at the objects on display. ]

It's likely more important to know why all this is here.

Kirk Langstrom | Justice League: Gods & Monsters

[godsandbats]

((OOC: See here for potential content warnings and an opt-out post. Things may be a bit more graphic for this mission. My contact info is in the journal profile and I'm the game's Discord server))

Takeout (CW: Vampirism):

The off-world missions are easily Kirk's least favorite missions. There's never a guarantee that the new world will have a convenient blood supply for him. Plus, he can only carry so much artificial plasma so he has to be careful with rationing.

In the case of this mission, he can't even hunt for deer. Kirk knows there are important objections to meet. He still intends to help but securing an ample food supply for himself is critical for himself and for others’ sake. Otherwise...

So Kirk falls back onto an old strategy and searches for Pollux's medical facilities and blood banks. Maybe somehow some of them still have working refrigerators with viable blood bags. Given the sudden and dramatic population reduction, they won’t be missed much and it would be a waste to let it all spoil.

It’s possible for someone to spot Kirk flying towards an abandoned blood bank. Or if one feels really bold, follow him inside as he searches the refrigerators. Try not to spook him though. He’s got a keen sense of smell.

Dead as Dead (CW: Potential mentions of past gaslighting):

Even for a vampire Gothamite vigilante like Kirk, he finds the whole scene apocalyptic. As he explores the city to try to find clues, his nose keeps stinging from the stench of corpses. Soon though, he recognizes one particular scent amongst that horrid mixture. He lands near the corpse pile and approaches.

Wildcard:

((OOC: Feel free to hit me up if you have something else in mind!))

dead as dead

[feytality]

[ he'll find a small teenage girl near the corpse pile as well, with her eyes closed. she seems to be.... praying....? this definitely isn't a good time for this, given that she's out in the open and could be caught by an undead or an enforcer any minute. but hey, at least he has company as he searches the corpse pile....?? ]

shirley dander | slow horses

[halfshit]

I. DEAD AS DEAD

[One of the first things you learn when they're training you up to be a spook is how to avoid drawing attention to yourself: follow someone without them noticing, ditch someone who's following you, blend into a crowd. But this isn't London, city of nine million people who all have places to be and no time or interest for just another unremarkable-looking woman with a shaggy haircut and an oversized track jacket. This place is too empty, too quiet, and that makes it harder not to stick out. Makes it easy to be self-conscious.

Shirley does her best, though, moving quickly and quietly from shadow to shadow as she curves around the edge of the park, scoping the place out while trying to avoid being detected by any enforcers wandering abound. She presses her back to a tree and looks down, letting her hair fall across her face; in London, she might be mistaken for somebody stopping for a breather who's just noticed an untied shoelace. Here, she can't help but look like a skulker.

Footsteps. Fellow Etrayan, or enforcer? Or something worse? Whoever's coming, Shirley wants a look at them before they spot her, so she circles around the tree away from the direction the footsteps are coming from. And that's when she gets a good look at the pile of corpses in the centre of the park.]

Jesus, [she breathes, almost inaudibly.]

II. INCHWORM

[Someone bigger than her – and most people are, given that she's fairly slight and barely over five feet tall – Shirley will suggest getting on their shoulders. Someone the same size or smaller, she'll offer to be the one on the bottom. She's small but she's fit, she can manage carrying somebody.

What worries her is how fast the water's rising. They haven't even started yet and it's already puddling around their feet an inch or two deep.]

Shit, come on. We better get a move on.

[She steps over to the ladder and gives it a good tug, making sure that it will at least take their weight. This is fucked enough without the fear that they'll get halfway up and the thing'll snap and send them plummeting.]

III. RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT

[A shot rings out, and Shirley's eyes blink closed. Not enough movement to trigger the gun, thankfully, and it takes a heroic effort not to flinch. For just a second, it's a different shot she's hearing, and she's back there—

'Shirley, I got this,' he'd said. And maybe thirty seconds later: bang. He hadn't got it, after all.

—and when her eyes blink open again the robot is still staring at the field.]

D'you think it can queue up shots? [she whispers to the person next to her, keeping her lips as still as possible.] Like, if someone runs off, could somebody else run too as long as they stopped before the robot was done shooting the first person? Or can it queue up a shot to kill them after?

IV. MUSEUM OF MULTIDIMENSIONAL ART

[Shirley's not much for museums. Fine art's never made much sense to her. She barely even watches films or tv. So she's not entirely sure whether the giant balloon dog is some kind of post-postmodern art she just doesn't get, or whether it's as weird and out of place as she thinks it is. And then there's the pile of seedpods. That's definitely weird, right? Though, hell, she remembers being a kid dragged to the Tate and seeing some 'art' that was just the lights going on and off. She'd thought it was an electrical problem until she'd seen everybody else there oohing and ahhing about it. So what the fuck does she know?

She makes her way carefully through the museum, her boots quiet on the floor, ears pricked listening for the slightest sound. Friend or foe, she doesn't want to get snuck up on. It's as she's rounding a display case of rubber ducks that she hears it: the faint clatter of a seedpod skittering across the floor. She turns back, still moving quietly, and sees a man.

And, despite trying to stay hidden, he definitely sees her. It looks like somebody she knows, a boyish flop of blond hair falling across his bright blue eyes, that dusting of stubble across his chin that he definitely thinks makes him look dashing, old blood staining his throat and the front of his shirt like he's had a mortal wound. Or mortally wounded somebody else. Normally, she might be relieved to see him, or at least not upset. But instead of the pathetic hangdog look that's permanently etched onto River Cartwright's face, he's grinning maniacally, leering at her like a villain on a slasher movie poster. She's seen other undead in the city with those grins on their faces. So if this is really River, that means he's one of them.

Fuck.

But she hasn't got time to process that, because there's another undead behind him, one she doesn't recognise, and out of the corner of her eye she can see a third person approaching. Somebody living, by the look of them, given the lack of nightmare fucking grin.

She grabs the nearest thing to hand – one of the rubber ducks out of the display case – and lobs it directly at River's grinning undead face. Hopefully that'll cause enough of a ruckus to alert the living person to the undead's presence without being so loud as to alert every other undead that might be stalking around the building.]

V. WILDCARD

[Feel free to write your own starter, or hit me up at sprucemoose for plotting!]

dead as dead

[maximumlegend]

[ The young man that was approaching stops - at multiple things, really. The sight of the bodies, but also the sound of something definitely audible being said. His one eye narrows, squinting in the direction of where he heard the sound from. Not that the pile of bodies isn't concerning, but.. you know, at least they seem dead. Concerning, but not a direct threat, unlike whoever just made a noise.

Though there's no immediate attack. Not an enforcer, then? ]

I can hear you, you know.

[ As if the same doesn't go for him as well now he's spoken up.. ]

Tim Drake | DC Comics CRAU

[ployboy]

sheepdog

[Exploring the city is the first matter of business for these newcomers- Tim has to wonder if they know (really understand) what they're here for. There's a steady trickle of them coming from those apartments and that's where his hunt begins. It won't be long before the undead or the loyal enforcers sniff them out. So if the Etrayans are going to have eyes on them from the get-go, it may as well be that one pair is there to help: warm yellow-brown, the wolf's eyes lock on target every night.

It's only at night that he takes this form, paws silent and gait quick. His hearing is better, his every sense is better, so it only stands to reason that Tim stalks with the top efficiency of a predator. He stays to the dark spots and keeps watch. There's a hope that he'll never reveal himself at all in this body, but Pollux is bloodthirsty: a loud curse, a broken glass, someone stepping into the light of a flickering streetlamp and staying there for a moment too long, or an Etrayan unaware they're about to round a corner to be met by Enforcers will have Tim dart into their path, a wolf with its head and tail low. Soundless. A wall.

Sometimes it's silent when he rushes in, having heard the spiked rate of a heart hammering in a chest and the flood of cortisol in someone's body. His teeth will catch the opposition's clothing from behind or some purposefully awkward angle, hoping to make them fall and drop the weapon they had pointed at a person.

On the last nights of this... welcome sort of invasion (rescue effort from the Etrayans), nearer the center of Pollux, the red-brown wolf will be barking ferociously at whoever isn't a good enough sneak, alerting the Enforcers nearby that they're there. (Because if this Etrayan is as capable as they seem, having made it this long without being broken or captured, then Tim and they can kill [heh] two birds with one stone. In this case, they can bring down two or three enforcers of this unjust rule together. It just so happens someone had to be volunteered as bait to draw them to the same point and that someone is you.)]

dead as dead

[There's never someone familiar, but there's that now-old understanding that the process is incomplete and therefore means little. In full gray-man wear of ripped jeans and old shirts, Tim frequents the city's green space. As the days go on there's more tiredness to and under his eyes (something about pulling nightshifts will do that to a guy) and the injuries only add up but he's sharp and always wary- of the sound of footsteps besides him, of the shift of the wind, of a shadow overhead of something or someone looming.

The corpses are effective. They draw him in like a moth to a flame. The graveyard had been the same back in Milton, too-- days and efforts gone in contemplating the dearly departed and how they affect those still living in a veritable wasteland. But. Well. Anyway. The green space can't only be calling to him. Eventually it'll draw in the enraged or righteous or the investigators. The type of people that'll plant themselves around the mounds of body parts and ill-arranged frozen faces and sit there and ponder. The type that'll become sitting ducks.

The world here will sometimes drag time slowly until a moment feels like an eternity. There's mystery in the air. Between the panicked shouting or gleeful yelping of packs of undead (again with the undead but apparently no, this isn't the Darkwalker’s doing. or the Lanterns') there's that lonesome and heavy silence.

Tim has made himself a part of that silence. It's a habit he holds onto until he no longer can, because there's new face in the city now. Either wandering towards or already near the bodies in that park. Tim observes and if the person isn't hunting, if they're only scouting or if they're curious or heartbroken, he approaches with open carefulness. There's a soft look on his face but it's not any less atuned to the urgency of... well, of the matter of life or death that haunts every action here in the world of Pollux.]

Hey. [Voice clear and carrying and depending on the state of the other it could be laced with sympathy, with worry. With enough confidence that they won't be heard because he checked.] As a head's up, it'll be time to go soon. There's a patrol not that far out. I can keep watch if you need me to.

[If they're mourning, or imagining reasons to.

There's also the moments when the situation is more dire and the opposition are on the heels of some poor soul. Tim will grab at the Etrayan's sleeve, not before calling out a clean,] This way!

[He knows the city like the back of his hand despite its oddities. There's a safe house he and his brother have fitted not too far away in the midst of this little maze-- but first, they need to lose the enemy.]

• The safe houses are nowhere as formidable as the Fort built up by the Etrayans, but they'll do the job for first aid or simply laying low for a while. Feel free to stumble upon one! Tim can be found all across the city, honestly, though his priorities are keeping people safe from a gruesome fate more so than investing any energy on the detective side of things. (Yes it is driving him mad.)

If you want a wildcard encounter you can reach me at fourboars. I came in last minute so couldn't get much plotting done but... hit me!

• dick grayson.

[ployboy]

[They're uniformed, not that every Enforcer needs to be uniformed (and actually, as the days turn to weeks, there's been less and less order or rhyme or reason to who joins the ranks and less and less easy visual clues.) But there are instances of order even in this manufactured chaos, and getting access to a place built for either loyalists or their victims is easier if one is dressed as, well, a loyalist. And what Tim means to get at is: this is his fault. It takes a few sleepless nights to sniff out the Tower but then he had to tell Dick. Which isn't the problem. Of course he'd have to tell Dick about the confirmation to this case they'd both been busting their tails to break. There are lives at stake and the slaughtering is going on right under their noses. Of course Tim was always going to tell Dick.

Of course when met with enforcers who were less than enthusiastic to hold a gun up to their heads, the brothers had done quick work of disarming and interrogating the pair. The poor souls had been as desperate as anyone and some long hours later, their families were smuggled out of their oddball apartments and taken to safe houses. The former enforcers had been too grateful- had given them supplies and had left them the maps to how to get into and navigate The Tower.

And so: here they are.

In the Tower. And it's Tim's fault.

Every floor has a distinct gruesome smell- chemical, septic, the smell of too many human bodies pressed together like sardines, the smell of something like metal. Like blood. Which isn't Tim's fault, but which feels like it should or could be if he let himself think on it.

He was too slow in finding this place. Is too slow now, jogging a few paces to join Dick by his side as they round the final flight of stairs. Tim checks his trusty weapon- his long metal pipe- a baton- secured to the loop of his pants before he steels himself and dares glance to the door in front of them. There's a Game going on in there. Their assignment as Enforcers is simple: don't let anyone break the rules.

(But bending the rules is going to have to be okay.)

One last look to Dick pulls some unnamed resolution out of him, and Tim offers a lopsided wry, dry, pained half smile. This won't be any worse than anything they haven't done thousands of times before: go in, save the day. Go in, save the day, get out. Live another day.]

You ready?

[Because the door is opening, and they've no longer got a choice.]

Jayce Talis | Arcane

[hexcope]

Arrival

Hah.

[ That’s the first word out of Jayce’s mouth once they arrive in the apartment complex and they’ve had a chance to investigate. There’s two toilets, facing each other. ]

Look at that. No one would use that, right? Ha ha.

[ If it doesn’t sound as mirthful as he’s trying to make it sound, it’s because even he can’t help but notice the vibes here are absolutely rancid. ]

Safehouse/Base Camp

[ No one’s spoken to him yet about plans, but he already knows what he’s going to be doing. The whole thing here’s a mystery, and there’s going to be some very inquisitive Etrayans who are going to want to go into dangerous areas with little to no plan on how to protect themselves. It’s what he would do, months ago.

Jayce brought only a few things with him, the hammer being one of them, a few days food supplies, and a tool kit for easy hammer repair if it came down to needing that. He’s posted up by the main door, feet crossed on some sort of table and leaning in his chair, reading. It probably gives off the vibe that he’s not taking things seriously, but it’s very much the opposite: if someone starts to leave the safehouse and seems inadequetly armed or prepared to go out, he calls out to them. ]

Hey. You look like you’re missing something.

[ Be it their own supplies, or a bodyguard, he offers both. ]

Arrival

[godsandbats]

[For this mission, Kirk is in his full Batman suit. He can't take his chances. When they arrive, Kirk also sense the rancid vibes. He feels like he can almost literally smell it. It'll probably be true soon enough.

Kirk keeps his expression stoic as he looks around]

Maybe it was abandoned long before the disaster.

Daniil Dankovsky & The Boyfriend Morgue

[thantagonist]

Corpse Pile in the Park

[Even at a distance, the pile in the park is not a mystery to Daniil. He has seen and smelled this before. The city is menacing, but this sort of pile up is frankly very weird.]

[When it seems like the patrols aren’t around, Daniil will try to grab the attention of fellow Etrayans, wherever they are to get him to help him with this. This is so annoying without orderlies, honestly, but it must be done. He’s dragged a stretcher out to bring fresh bodies back to the hideout to examine them. If he seed you, he will enlist you.]

You! Grab the other end of this. Hurry, hurry! [His voice is breathy and tired sounding, the urging coming out in a hiss. ]


Getting Captured

[Eventually, Daniil’s luck simply runs out. He sneaks out, but his routine is not varied enough. The enforcers catch on and capture him. If he was so curious about the games, they would let him find out.]

[Daniil gets three gunshots out before he’s knocked to the ground, beaten, handcuffed, and starts getting dragged away towards the Tower. ]

Help! HELP ME! [Though he typically sounds tired and soft voiced, he can get very, very loud. They don’t bother to gag him, scaring out additional people is useful for their means.]


The Makeshift Morgue

At FORT BADASS, a spindly, snakeskin coat clad man commandeers the second floor basement to make a morgue. The freight elevator is a large and double sided. He never needs to enter the front door or bother the living within.

This floor is the size of the footprint of the building and largely houses the utilities. With assistance, he lays out as many tables as he can find. This space is naturally cool, but Daniil has dropped the temperature even further with the help of a few portable air conditioners and plastic sheeting to box the room in.

Daniil has found bodies, but he asks people to bring whatever bodies they can find that are familiar or in decent enough condition to learn something from.

Or, he’s here to talk and answer questions for those in mourning.

Feel free to use this space as well to see a dead castmate and have Daniil talk to your character about it. Or if you die, feel free to leave a corpse! It won’t stick around forever, as it’ll soon be sucked back to Etraya, confusing Daniil and making him feel like he’s misplaced them. Feel free to hit me up in the discord about additional plotting.

makeshift morgue

[feytality]

[ maya is here as a favor to daniil.... mainly to make sure the morgue isn't haunted. but seriously, it gives her the creeps being here. she's still recovering from being stabbed in the arm, so she's taking it easy, but she frowns as she looks around at the bodies. ]

I think the cause of death for most of these are those.... tower games. Or enforcers.

[ so clearly he shouldn't have to cut them open, right? riiiiight? ]

Loki | MCU

[abit_ofboth]

Dead As Dead

Of all the worlds Loki has been to before in his long life, this has to be the worst of them. Previously, he might have said Lamentis because watching a civilization die is truly one of the most terrible things one can witness, but this? This place is already dead, but there are still lingering feelings of life bleeding around the edges. It’s creepy and honestly, it puts Loki a bit on edge.

Not long after arriving, Loki catches word that there is something strange in the park and he decides to head over there to investigate. He wants to find out what’s going on here as fast as possible so they can leave. He’s not one to stand down from a creepy mystery, but Loki would be lying if he said he wasn’t creeped out. That only makes him more determined though.

It takes a lot to horrify Loki. He’s seen (and been responsible for) many atrocities in his life, but finding out that the mound in the middle of the park is a pile of bodies is one of the most horrific things he’s ever seen. Determined, he heads closer to the pile, wondering if he can ascertain more of the situation by finding out maybe how they died, or how the bodies came to be dumped here.

What he doesn’t expect is to see a familiar face from back home lying in the pile.

Loki comes to a dead stop, his already pale face suddenly much paler.

“Mobius?” he whispers, feeling suddenly weak in the knees as he notes the white hair, moustache and typical brown suit that identify his best friend.



The Tower - Red Light, Green Light
[CW: Possible Death]

Finding Mobius’ body in the pile in the park only serves to spur Loki into action. There is part of him that suspects it’s all just a trick and Mobius hasn’t been living a similar (and clearly worse) life to his own in Etraya, but it doesn’t matter. Either he needs to avenge his friend and everyone else in that pile, or he has a personal vendetta against whoever is trying to affect him this way. Either way, Loki is going to find out what’s happening here if it kills him.

Huh, famous last words?

Sneaking his way into the hidden tower, Loki has every intention of simply sneaking his way up to the top so he can take care of whatever it is that’s happening here. But what he doesn’t take into account is his total loss of power. It reminds him far too much of his first few minutes at the TVA, except this is much worse.

Fine, if he has to play their stupid little games, that is what he’ll do. And he’ll win. There’s no Kang anymore to make it so he always loses. He can do this, with or without his magic.

A game called Red Light, Green Light is just starting and Loki thinks it’s built for him.

“This cannot be that hard, right?” he says to the person next to him. “We can do this.”


Wildcard

[I’m open to anything in the event! Feel free to shoot me a plotting message at prettyapathetic, shoot me a DM or just start something up if you have an idea already.]

dead as dead

[maximumlegend]

Well, shit.

The piles of dead bodies aren't exactly the greatest sight in the world already, especially when they're stuck in this place with the things that caused that. But the sight of someone Fabian likes standing next to them and looking visibly upset?

Even worse. There's not a single part of that he likes.

Maybe it would be better to leave the situation alone, especially since grabbing attention is a bad thing in a place where said attention only seems to come from things that want to attack you. But that's also part of why Fabian can't leave this alone. If Loki stays like this and they get him-- will he just become one of those bodies?

Fabian frowns, trying to get over to the other's side as quickly as he can without making enough noise to wake the dead.

"Hey," he says - almost whispers, though it's a very urgent whisper. "Look, I know this sucks, but you can't stay here."

Shiraki Mayuko | Fruits Basket

[welcome_summer]

Dead as Dead: Exterior

[Mayuko's first impressions of Pollux are that it doesn't make any sense. The interior of the apartment complex where the Etrayans were dropped off? Befuddling compared to the exterior, where it's clear so much more care was taken.

It doesn't take long for her to re-evaluate. This is a beautiful hell. Worse than a month of mortification and scarcity in the Dregs of the train. Worse than weeks of hallucinations in a fog that wouldn't disipate. Because she sees the bodies.

This all would have been easier if she hadn't seen the white coat. It was too familiar, her eyes couldn't help but be drawn to it. She stops, seeing the second body. She sinks to the ground, seeing the third. She presses her face into the ground, one hand tangled into her hair as the other reaches, clenches, hits the ground again and again.

Why couldn't I have been sent here? I could have helped them, I could have done something THUD

Why couldn't they have been left behind in the fae land? We could have brought them back to Etraya, they would have been safe THUD

Why couldn't the enforcers have left them alone for ONE MORE DAY THUD]

WHY? WHY? GOD, WHY?

Dead as Dead: Morgue

[Mayuko is spending a lot of time down here. Partly because she doesn't want the Etrayan doctor that asked people to come in for check-ups to get any ideas that he can poke at her friends when she's not looking.

But also, it's as good a time as any to conduct the rituals. Does she know that their souls have been obliterated? Maybe, maybe not. It is still the thing that is done, should be done. Will be done. All seven days after death, then once a week for six more weeks.

A book of sutras was not in her travel inventory. She knows a few, so she runs through those. For her friends. For the others down here. What use for food, drink, sleep? There's always more bodies to pray over.]

Fort Badass/Exploration/Wildcard

[She does come up for air, eventually. The fort seems secure enough, and with Etrayans and Polluxians coming and going, there's plenty to do. The garden could always do with tending, and it gets her outside. Not as many pitying glances to field, either; she hasn't taken any of this well and she's starting to feel self-conscious.

There are also leads to follow outside--more supplies, different locations with Polluxians, retracing the steps back to see what her friends knew, how they lived, how they died. Company would be welcome.]

((OOC: Wildcards welcome, please feel free to drop a prompt here! Plotting thread HERE))

Garden

[ployboy]

[That's it. That's enough.

He needs a break.

And while Tim had been aware of the Fort, had heard and kept the location stored away to give out to only those in need, this is the first time he takes up the offer for reprieve. A Polluxian for only a month, there hadn't been time to map out every single building and its layout when survival was in question. He should, probably, tidy up. Take a warm shower and wash his hair and get a change of clothes.

And probably sleep.

But he's restless, and soon he finds the access to the rooftop. Imagine his surprise when he's met with... green. Overgrown and messy, sure, but there's someone working on it. It's enough to give him pause, something pleasant in his eyes. Oh, and also- very importantly-]

Are those strawberries?

[pleaseletthembestrawberries]

riz gukgak | fantasy high | ota!

[stresstokens]

a. general.

[ Riz approaches every mission given to him with a sense of wariness and the spirit of over-preparedness, whether it's an amusement park or a monster invasion, and this mission is no exception. You might find him in the apartment buildings, a pair of yellow eyes gleaming in the dark, the whisper of his shoes against the hallway's linoleum flooring, a hissed curse in the night. He will reveal himself to a fellow Etrayan, though, a professional timbre to his voice as he says, ] No traps, no cameras. We don't know how long we're gonna be stuck here, though, so I'd raid the pantries while we still can.

[ Or perhaps you run into him as you both navigate the strange, stranded streets, danger around every corner. He's so quiet, so stealthy as to nearly be invisible, but if you look trepidatious at the journey ahead, he'll slip by your side, a clawed finger prodding at your hip with a whispered, ] I found a different path. C'mon, let's avoid these dicks. God, they suck.

[ Otherwise? He's just about everywhere, searching for clues, for answers, for useful tidbits to take home at all hours, so absorbed in their collective task that he scarcely sleeps. He wants to get to the bottom of things, wants to watch the happenings of this place and, frankly, is concerned about the same damn thing happening at home. If you have a moment's respite to talk about it, you've got a receptive Goblin right here. ]

b. corpse party.

[ Riz is no stranger to corpses. As a private investigator who specializes in a good old fashioned murder mystery, you have to deal with that sort of thing on a pretty regular basis -- that is, when he's not the one making the corpses. But even for him, seeing them so impersonally stacked up like this fills him with revulsion, and he can't help the way he hisses oh, shit! and lurches backwards, covering his sensitive nose with one sleeve. This isn't a murder of passion. This is the sort of thing he's only seen in textbooks about wars and atrocities of the like he'd hoped never to encounter himself, or at least, only to encounter when he was a more experienced adventurer. He grimaces, clearly rattled, but swallows down his bile to approach the pile of corpses.

Once the shock wears off, it's time to get to work. Eyes darting around to make sure he's not being watched, he takes a pair of rubber gloves from out of his briefcase and begins the slow work of dragging any corpses he considers to be notable from out of the pile and sets to impersonally investigate them. Their mouths are swabbed, their fingernails examined, their sagging eyelids yanked open with deceptively dexterous claws, their wounds carefully catalogued. If the corpse happens to be one of your loved ones, it's not a terribly reassuring sight; while Riz is in no way disrespectful, neither is he particularly precious with the way he handles the bodies, treating them more as the lumps of flesh that they are instead of the living, breathing people they used to be. ]

They weren't all killed in the heat of battle, [ he says aloud, speaking into the microphone of a glowing crystal he's set at the base of the pile. ] Some may have been targeted as leaders of a rebellion. They probably don't mind tracking us down if we're enough of a pain. Some of these are pretty fresh. They're keeping people somewhere other than the abandoned apartments.

c. enforcers.

[ If there's one thing Riz enjoys (no matter how much he may deny it), it's the thrill of the fight. He tries to avoid violence if he can, but there's some small, vicious part of him that thrills in it -- and that includes the fact that he now has targets that he doesn't have to feel at all guilty about fucking up. You might find yourself being pursued by one of the enforcers, or perhaps you stumble into Riz, being tracked down after sticking his nose into one too many places it doesn't belong, but he doesn't look frightened or concerned; to the contrary, his mouth is stretched in a wide fanged grin, a wild glint in his eye as he reaches for his arquebus. ]

Three... two... one...

[ Some of his other party members are able to do magnificent stunts. Their fighting styles are like works of art, buoyed by magic and music and dance. But Riz? ]

Boom!

[ His specialty is just shooting people in the head. It doesn't stop the undead in their tracks, but it sure doesn't hurt. ]

d. the tower.

[ There's no way a guy like Riz was going to miss out on nosing his way into the tower. He's lucky enough to have no true abilities of his own - his superpowers are, helpfully, brain and gun - so he doesn't realize magical interference until he's already trapped within its walls.

It's not a huge surprise he was chosen as a contestant, not an enforcer. He's always been the object of amusement, the funny little goblin performing for people bigger and stronger than him, but the more of the games he gets involved in, the greater the pit in his stomach grows, and the more he begins to seriously consider his compulsion just to attack the enforcers and see how many he can take down before being taken down.

He doesn't do it, though. Not yet. For now, he's stuck in one of the holding areas with contestants both new and old, waiting for the next fresh hell they'll be exposed to. He's quick to approach his fellow Etrayans, visibly shaky and paranoid, dark circles under his eyes and little red indents where he's been pressing his nails into the palm of his hand. ] Hey, you hungry? [ He produces a protein bar from his briefcase, holding it out. ] Even if you're not, you should eat. I dunno how much more downtime we'll be getting between these messed up, uh... 'games'.

[ I'm open to going through any of the mod-provided games, or anything of your choice! Feel free to use this section as a segue. :> ]

e. wildcard!

[ I'm down for anything! I've got my plotting comment HERE, and please feel free to hit me up for a custom starter either here, on the plotting post or over on plurk. :] ]

[newsbeat]

It's okay, I don't want to take your food.

[The answer comes automatically. Even if he's without his powers here, Clark is still a big strong guy, and Riz is...not those things. He can hold out longer.]

How are you doing?

[He's alive and doesn't look noticeably awful, but looks can be deceiving, and Clark would rather hear it from him.]

Bruce Wayne | DC

[theknightshift]

Supply Run

[ Pollux is a grim place.

Bruce feels it seeping into him, through the joints of the suit. But this isn't the first time he's stepped into hell. It's an old ache, familiar in the way it winds through him. Before the virus, he would have taken his time. Felt out the landscape a little more, learned where the shadows were darkest and all of the high up places so he could watch without being seen himself. But he doesn't do any of that. He walks like he's been here before. There's work to do and Batman did not leave his work unfinished.

He spends a little time in the apartments, taking in the oddity. A shower where a sofa might sit under normal circumstances. A sink in the kitchen, but the refridgerator is fitted in the bedroom. A table fixed upside down to the tile and lace tablecloth draped over the legs, yellow with age.

The pile of corpses are noted, death in the air, thick like Gotham smog. He would stop and look. Not yet. But soon.

In his arms, supplies he's gathered and sorted for the other Etrayans. His children have priority, but anyone that passes him he'll stop for and offer them something from the items. ]

Here, take what you need.

the courage that kills

[ There was a time in Bruce's life when he would have taken his time. Calculated his odds, approached with a plan in place. Studied the angles and the exits. Made sure the fight could be won before he ever bothered to engage. The virus has changed him. Hesitation feels like he's moving in slow motion. Too much time wasted in the thinking, when he could just do it.

The Enforcers are out. Hunting. So is Bruce.

He doesn't wait for the perfect opening. Doesn't bother to calculate the risk. He just drops between the shambling corpse and the person they're about to attack to absorb the blow himself. ]

Get out of here!

[ Wildcard: Or feel free to hit me with your prompt. I'm in the game server or plurk @ tapsters if you want to plot. Plotting comment is here. ]

closed. ( tim / dead as dead )

[theknightshift]

[ Pollux is a grim place.

And its claws sank deep in Bruce's body.
Like it knew what nerves to hit. What wounds to open. How to take him apart one piece at a time.

This isn't the first time he's stepped into a scene like this. But it doesn't make taking it in any easier. Suffering is suffering and if he could have done something to stop this, anything at all, he would have.

But he's too late. Too slow. Always too damned slow. The bodies are stacked high and Bruce weaves his way through them like a macabre maze, taking inventory. None of the faces he recognizes and he's relieved.

Right up until he sees the dark sleeve of a jacket peeking out at the bottom of a heap. Bruce squats, because he knows the cuff link, even if he wishes he didn't. His gloves are dirty, but Bruce knows if the man were alive, they would be pristine. He swallows like it will soothe him and then Bruce stands and begins pulling the bodies off, one at a time. He's careful but hurries.

He doesn't know when Tim approaches. He doesn't care. He glances over his shoulder and continues to dig. ]

If you're going to stand there, help me.

Vincent Valentine | FF7: Rebirth

[loveandsin]

( please check my plotting post regarding my activity in June before engaging. )

Exploration

[ With the city practically in ruins, Vincent can only do his best to navigate the streets and help any who might be in danger from either the undead or enforcers who patrol the area. It's the latter he's mostly worried about, as they seem to have a variety of abilities much like the inhabitants of Etraya.

Keeping his eyes and ears sharp, he moves like a shadow, sometimes only the briefest flash of red visible before he melds into the background as if he were never there. How he manages that in a crimson cape is anyone's guess. Mostly, he sticks to alleys, and when he encounters a stray zombie, he dispatches it quietly with a strike or a kick to avoid sounding off his position with the use of his gun.

As he reaches the mouth of the alley, Vincent stops and looks around for any signs of danger or someone in need of help. ]

Wildcard

[ Please start as you see fit ]

[betenoir]

[Renoir scours the streets for those in need. His concern is genuine, but also minimal, and selfish as much as anything. He disappears from one street only to appear in another. It gets him noticed by some corpses along the way, because they have nothing more important to witness. How they manage to stumble and walk is anyone's guess. There are no traces of chroma, no strings or threads dictating their movements.

How they manage to run is a mystery. He quickly dispatches one with a strike above the knee, disables a second above the elbow, and decapitates a third.

As he lowers his cane he does not know if he is being watched. Or rescued from the first that is crawling across the floor. Perhaps the person turns up during the action, afterwards, or even before.]

🗡️ open prompts

[rudelanguage]

SCENARIO ONE: up to two (2) Billy Zanes can die in this one
cws: gratuitous violence/swearing, corpse stuff, Billy Zane

LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!

[Antigone's voice is shrill as it bounces off the alleyways and on through the near-vacant streets of the city. she's done alright for herself a day or so into this, given that there was no fucking way she was showing her ass out in broad daylight. but not every sneaky, shadowy path is safe, and thus...

and thus, some fucking chud enforcer sighted her and has sent some undead clown who will not stop groaning about "embracing the pOwER of dARKneSs" or whatever throughout this hellish chase.

it's led to this: she's run out of misty steps, her illusory double has vanished, and one well-timed gravity spell has flattened her to the ground. pinned. flattened like roadkill, ready for the fancy chud to come and collect.

that's what the screaming's about.

help?]

---

SCENARIO TWO: we can beat up Boruto's dad together
cws: gratuitous violence/swearing, corpse stuff, Naruto

[one must imagine oneself now exploring one of the vacant buildings on the ground floor, because for this prompt one is. it is not long before a lanky, green figure emerges in the gloom, hunched (as you better be! learn some stealth motherfucker) and moving quieter than someone that size ought to.

his eyes gleam in the dark like a cat's, sweeping the area and fixing upon...you.

they freeze and watch. if it's someone they know, the pause will be brief, but otherwise, he's waiting you out for signs of being a shitfuck that needs dispatching.

(the Naruto isn't in the room with us yet, we gotta preamble)]

---

SCENARIO THREE: this is the body horror one
cws: animorphs-style body horror/dysmorphia, more foul language, depersonalization

Click here for prompt (hidden bc potential yucky)

[from the moment Antigone's dragged into the tower, the screaming starts and will not stop. whatever's going on in this structure, it has the authority to compel Knife's body to disobey, and that's like the only thing they have control of.

their ill-fated cage companion will hear all of it in advance, but see much of it in-progress as Antigone is dumped into holding, writhing and shrieking ass though she were being actively murdered.

it might very well be: proportions are skewing in unnatural ways as fur is giving way to blotches of pale skin - skin that is being clawed at by nails that are snapping off in the process of doing the clawing. her cute, fluffy tail shrivels, all the fur flaking off as the meat and bone is schlorped (i'm sorry) into the body that grows, outgrowing the wrapped layers and lace that must unknot or be torn as she's forced to grow.

Knife fights it, of course, because this is all they have: it makes the shrieks pitch into unnatural tones as they grasp for any form that they can decide, colors shifting across skin in protest. scales, patterns of feathers, freckles...it all gives way as their stamina does. screaming onesself raw is exhausting work, to say nothing of the existential fight to be the shape they want to be, forced into another one. square pegs and round holes and such.

attempts to aid are wholly ignored - any pressure or sound is just part of the cacophony of their temporary madness, and it is likely one who moves in to try will get scratched, kicked, or spit upon. you're welcome for that.

minutes of morphing madness will yield a trembling, half-dressed changeling, panting hoarsely and blinking furiously against anguished tears.]

animorphs

[feytality]

[ this is horrifying to watch. more horrifying than the actual games, in some respects. maya doesn't dare approach antigone while this is taking place, but she can't help but stare a little, like a trainwreck. when it's all finished and antigone is panting and blinking, maya takes off the top layer of her kimono and offers it to antigone to cover up. ]

[ the whole thing was a horrible freakshow, but maya can't help but want to.... well. help. ]

[ with a little smile, trying to be encouraging: ]

Here. We'll get out of this, don't worry.

[ help....ing? maybe? ]

[levindicated]

The Games.

[Cid is here to spring people. That’s what he told himself, at least. He was a clever man, so it was easy enough to talk his way into a uniform and be given a gun. He had no intention of using it, but it was a nice enough costume piece. Between two games, Cid is going to approach you and do a temperature check.]

How much more of this can you take, hm?

The Museum.

[Rumor had it, the place to give a second gander was the museum. So that was worth investigating, right? The very concept of an art museum was fairly foreign to Cid. Art was merely collected by the wealthy, it was not somewhere you could stroll. He was aware of the Louvre back in Etraya, and he saw the merit of it. All the works of beauty and effort, made public for peple to take a gander and study some history. Lovely thing. ]

[This museum was not necessarily built on those same principles. Cid keeps getting distracted by absurd things, trying to find some sort of meaning or code in his surroundings. He looks at all the shriveled fruit on the floor.]

…What is this room full of trash?

Closed to Benedikta.

[Cid’s snooping does not last forever. He gets caught sooner or later, and when they do they brutalize him. They clap him with some slim-style crystal fetters connecting to a collar and a chain to connect. His clothes are torn, his shirt missing entirely, and his face is bloodied. They dump him on Benedikta’s doorstep and knock, leaving before she can ask them too many questions.]

[Cid groans and tries to sit up, then tries to stand. No good. There’s another tether from his ankles to his wrists, keeping him from getting to his feet. ] Come back here, you ugly sods!

Feel free to hit me with wildcards or hit me up on the discord! I’m open n easy

the games

[feytality]

[ he's an enforcer, which means maya is wary. she's already been stabbed in the arm, with her arm wrapped up crudely with her own kimono jacket. other than that, she just looks tired and worn down. but she frowns and balls her hands into fists when he addresses her ]

What do you care?

[ is he just here to taunt her? ]

dick grayson | dc comics

[dickism]

dead as dead

[It's been over a month, and as much as Dick is used to getting stuck in situations where he's at a disadvantage, he has to admit... This one's a doozy. No suit, no weapons, no gadgets, almost no idea what's going on. That doesn't stop him from patrolling, though, keeping an eye on things and helping where he can. Almost inevitably, the park becomes one of his regular haunts.

It's a good, centralized position. As the natural heart of the city, it draws people in. That's the logical, strategic reason, but there's another one, too: Dick has seen the reactions to the pile of bodies, has seen people find friends or loved ones, sometimes inexplicably, and he can't help but feel a responsibility to keep the unsuspecting from stumbling upon their own nightmare.

So, when he runs into someone a few dozen yards from the mound, he stops them.]

Hey. You might not want to head up there.

special collections

[This stuff was so much easier back home, when he had access to... anything.

Dick's managed to hack his way onto the elevator and is now being thwarted by a massive chain link fence and a truly unimpressive, but stalwart, electronic lock. He's no slouch when it comes to this sort of thing, but he's at a disadvantage - he has nothing on him that will allow him to interface with the lock directly, and guessing at the passcode carries a high potential of disaster. Dismantling it feels like the only solution, assuming that doesn't trigger some sort of alarm or lock this area down completely, but the tools he's managed to cobble together aren't exactly cutting edge.

And yet, here he is, crouched on the ground, trying. If nothing else he can share whatever he finds out through his inevitable failure with Tim. He's trying to jimmy his way into the panel when--]

Ow.

[He definitely just got zapped. Minorly, but that doesn't soothe his ego.]

wildcard

[feel free to hit me with something else, or plan something with me at cephalopods!]

dead as dead.

[brat]

( his cloak is pulled up over his head, masking every part of damian from his slightly too long to stand up hair down to the green of his boots. it would be more helpful to hide his identity, if the cloak itself wasn't a bright yellow, standing out especially among the dark and dreary pile of bodies in the park.

but he's good at hiding despite the bright colors making it more difficult. damian keeps as much out of sight as he can manage as he sifts through bodies, searching for - something. he doesn't know. doesn't want to know, really, but he's here regardless, not getting close enough to touch the corpses just yet but - watching over them. looking for something familiar.

there isn't anything.

until he hears that voice speak up close by.

his head tips back, but he doesn't turn towards the sound. not just yet. doesn't quite trust it, especially not here. )

It isn't anything I haven't seen before.

Izuku "Deku" Midoriya 🥦 My Hero Academia

[wannasmash]

Exploring the City

cw: spoilers, violence, undead. pls opt-in for potential gore, we love gore in this house

Midoriya sweeps the slapdash maze of rooms in full Hero gear: dark green jumpsuit, tattered yellow cape, gauntlets with mechanized wrist parts, and armored shoes. After exiting that horror of an apartment complex, he decides to put on his hard lower face mask. It's clear something widespread and terrible has happened to this city. It's a mess compared to the quiet streets of Etraya. It reminds him of the more battle-worm areas of Japan back home, civilians hiding out while people fight in the streets.

"Are you... sick?" he attempts to ask someone in the distance. As he approaches with a helping hand, it becomes clear that the mangled person in rags is a corpse with a wide rictus smile. Shockingly his designer sunglasses are intact. The man starts at him at a run. This isn't like those slow zombies from movies, this is a body being piloted without regard for whether or not it can or should move that way.

"Please stop or I'll shoot!" he shouts his warning. His words are polite but his voice snaps with threat like a whip. Midoriya turns on his power in a gust of harmless sparks and points his arm at him, fingers poised to flick. With enough super strength he can flick a blast through the air like an air cannon.

FORT BADASS

potential spoilers. listen to him and go outside or convince him to stay and rest!

Midoriya isn't entirely sure, but he feels like the name of this safehouse should be pronounced in all caps. It's been some time now, but he has been working tirelessly. His Hero costume is looking worse for wear, and his tangled mop of green hair has lost some of its spring. His eyes are rimmed with shadows.

"It's time for another supply run. Any other requests?" he asks in the clipped businesslike tones of someone about to go into combat. He is dutifully copying a list on the whiteboard into a notebook.

Why Is Your Leitmotif Playing in Minor Key??

cw: spoilers

He appears without a sound, a skittish figure in a mask and stained green cowl defending anyone who looks like they need help. He's been lying to everyone about the extent of his power. His arrival is usually heralded by a smokescreen. Then tendrils of dark energy whip out to restrain undead and Enforcer alike. Super strength strong enough to fell a building is usually enough to down them, but he has other tricks.

"Are you all right?!" calls a hoarse young voice from behind the mask. He doesn't look like a Hero.

Not only is Hero a profession in his world, but Izuku Midoriya has always had that instinct to jump into danger to save another. Every cause is a worthy one. Everyone deserves to be saved. When was the last time he ate or slept? He's run himself ragged, but he's willing to bear it. Preservation of life is his primary motivation.

Wildcard

plotting comment

Fort Badass

[taxevasion]

Fellow wearer of a teal "hero" outfit, Adrian has not been volunteering for supply runs. Admittedly, they sound boring, and he's been busy doing other things! Like putting rifle bullets through the heads of Enforcers. But that also means he's mostly going out and getting his own food too, so at least he's not a burden on the safehouse's supplies that way.

That doesn't mean his requests aren't going to be annoying to those who are taking this whole thing a lot more seriously than he is.

"Yeah, can we get more markers? Oh! And gasoline."

Sollux Captor ♊︎ Homestuck

[p2iioniic]

PREFACE.

[Hearing the psychic screams of the soon-to-die were always a pain in the ass to hear, but it’s come in use on more than one occasion. The forewarning of what was to come, usually followed by mass disbelief. He tried to warn the Polluxians— but almost always his warnings land on deaf ears. Sollux’s general paranoia of Pollux being an experiment with doomed consequences paid off, and miles beyond the main parts of the city, he had established an underground bunker of sorts that he made his own secret headquarters. Screens line the walls, linked to cameras he had discreetly set up on major streets in case he needed to monitor anything, and of course, his computers, and back up computers. He had enough food stored up to six months, because if anything bad was happening that would keep him underground longer than that, was going to be a problem no matter how many more months he planned for.

Then, true disaster struck. The electrical grid went offline. His cameras, all defunct. His drones, also trivialized.

That was when the nightmare really set in. Desperate after less than eight hours to find a way to bring power back online, Sollux had slipped out of his bunker in the dead of night. It was just about as bad as he expected— undead haunting the streets, the massive pile of dead bodies in the park, and enforcers nabbing anyone they could find to drag into that massive tower. He’d tried to investigate once, but even nearing it seemed dangerous and without a solid plan, it would just backfire and wind up with him joining that corpse pile. It took some looting through various buildings, but eventually he found the parts he’d need to make a power generator capable of powering his HQ, enough that he could remain isolated from the rest of Pollux for months at a time. His cameras remained offline, but he set up at least one device that could monitor for frequencies used on the network.

Eventually, something pinged, as he neared the dwindling end of his food supply.]

Fucking finally…

[Thank god this new network was pretty easy to hack into.]

2AM - Safehouse - Arrival

[ Thanks to a few conversations with Accelerator and Daniil, Sollux agreed to visit the Etrayans safehouse. He flies as discreetly as a guy who glows like a police car can, landing behind a few buildings away and walking on foot to the location he had been given. Normally he’d like to be a little more alert after getting through the door in case this really is a trap, but he feels like he’s about to pass out from the exertion.

So anyone keeping watch of the door for any suspicious individuals sees a gray-skinned boy burst in, and then immediately head for the nearest chair to sit in, pushing his red and blue glasses up onto the top of his head where two pairs of orange horns rest, and rubbing his hands over his eyes. He’s oddly tall for someone around fifteen years old in human years, closer to six feet than five, and lanky on top of that. Only some of that can be contributed to personal poor eating habits right now, which is his whole reason for even being here. Once he feels like he isn’t going to faint, he slowly stops rubbing his face and takes a look around, his eyes matching the same colors as his glasses— a vibrant red and blue color.

If anyone’s staring at him and making it obvious, he gives them an annoyed look and spits out: ]

What the fuck are you looking at? I wath athked to come here!

[ That sure is a pretty aggressive lisp he’s got, curteousy of the huge fangs in his mouth. ]

3AM - Safehouse - Food raiding

[ Now that he’s back in the city, and among what could be considered “society,” he’s realizing he missed having at least some contact with people. With the Polluxian network compromised, he hasn’t dared to send any messages over it, and only sent messages to people directly. But this safehouse… even it has a limit on how safe it can actually be. He still doesn’t plan on staying for long, just enough to grab some more supplies from the Etrayan food stores, and head back to his headquarters to last a little longer. A part of him wants to stay and help. They could use the assistance— it’ll be easier for them to win if they have someone with working knowledge of Pollux.

But he’s seen lost causes. And they look a lot like this.

So anyway, there’s this guy, in the Safehouse foodstore room, shoving cans of beans and soup into his backpack, along with boxes of somewhat stale cereal, and then a whole other backpack that seems to be dedicated solely to Mountain Dew Code Red and Mountain Dew Voltage. ]

3AM - WILDCARD

[ Got another idea in mind? DM me or message me on discord! ]

4AM - Leaving

[ Unfortunately, Sollux in his cynicism is almost always right.

Going anywhere, even this late at night, was sure to draw someone’s attention, and there’s a small gathering of undead hovering closer to the safehouse, as if they had sniffed him out specifically. Sollux, peering out of a higher story window, curses under his breath and gives a look to whomever might be nearby with him. ]

Tho, what’th your security look like around here, or am I going to have to do thomething about those guysth?

[thantagonist]

[Daniil comes up into the common area with a slight limp and a little bruising on his cheek and the bridge of his nose. Tough week. He doesn’t mean to stare at the unusual fellow, but puzzle pieces click as he sees the glasses and hears the voice.]

[Oh, that was characteristic of his lisp, wasn’t it? That was sort of cute, then. He’s not sure he would exemplify a lisp were he in the young man’s situation, but it had character.]

I know. I invited you. Apologies for staring. I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating or if the blunt trauma had begun to worsen my myopia.

Sollux, right? I’m saying that right? [Daniil is a little hissy anyway, but his voice is soft and breathy. He sounds (and looks) tired!]

Aliarra Landsritter | OC (D&D)

[lockdownbuild]

In the middle of the Museum of Multidimensional Art stands Aliarra, in full battle mode -- spiked armor, guisarme alight with holy flame, feet not quite touching the ground. Though she shows no sign of the equipment she'd been charged to bring to this place, she's prepared nonetheless. This is why extradimensional storage spaces exist, after all.

Only one thing stops her from descending into the depths below, where the special collections area offers further advancement towards their goal: she doesn't recognize an elevator when she sees one. Aren't there any stairs around here??

[neonrain]

Aliarra is someone hard to miss, especially now, and the chance to see her in action is one that E-Soul seizes without a second thought. In an instant he stands beside her. He takes a brief moment to look her over, his quiet awe concealed by his mask. She appears every inch the hero. The seriousness of their present mission goes without saying; he can only imagine what task she's appointed herself.

There's an easy way to find out, though. And if she doesn't want him to invite himself along, he knows that she'll say so without mincing words.

"Here with a purpose?"

sophie cuckoo🎮 x-men comics

[sophielicious]

(closed) sophie and adrian, cw on this starter a lot of death description

[sophielicious]

(All that's in her mind is death. The stench, the inertia, the way it feels when air is last breathed out of lungs, limp, weak, gone. Sophie's died a few times before — the double vision and thundering headache, confusion, bleeding out from having her brain shut down; the sudden, 'one moment there and she was gone' deaths where she nearly blinked out of life, and the paralysis and termination conveniently caused to her when she was too weak to fight back a lethal injection. Most of her life, she's been stationary in the same spot — buried with the words 'Heroine of Open Day', and gone, and back, and gone, and back...

And it just keeps happening here, right before her eyes, it aches, disgusts, nauseates, and brings fire to her head. There's only anger bubbling in her stomach, boiling in her veins, and her view becomes incredibly narrow, not great when all she hears in the air is suffering and fear from all sides. Never idle, never complacent, never one to sit back and wash her hands in front of people she can aid. This place is giving her a headache — and she's left all their shit with Adrian.

Walking isn't nearly the correct term; she's stomping every step to where Adrian is, and when she's close enough, she'll announce her intent.)

Where's our stash? I need the sniper. I'm fucking done already. This place can burn.