logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: ENTER MR SANDMAN (DEFENDERS)

Entry tags:

EVENT LOG: ENTER MR SANDMAN (DEFENDERS)

EVENT LOG:
ENTER MR. SANDMAN (DEFENDERS)

characters: those who signed up as defenders for the event
location: all around Beacon
date/time: november 16-29
content: the defenders attempt to drive off a spirit invasion
warnings: lots of horror! body horror, psychological horror, gore, violence, etc.. please cw all threads where appropriate! mods will do the same

in your closet, in your head.

It all happens in a matter of moments. Your friends, your companions, and even some people you aren't all that fond of; everyone who took so much as a bite of the spirits' feast suddenly collapses into a comatose heap. Which is bad enough already, but the worst, by far, is yet to come.

Before anyone can really figure out what's happened to the sleepers, the woods surrounding the town come alive with sound. Rustling, screeching, clicking, howling, and under it all, the characteristic hoots and whistles of the forest spirit tongue. But these aren't the friendly creatures that set up the banquet in the first place, and they aren't the familiar faces (or masks) from around Beacon. As they begin to emerge, bursting forth from the trees, these spirits reveal themselves as a horrifying army of terrors. And sprinkled among them, distinguishable by the emerald glint in their sockets, are the infamous "green eyes", the dangerous spirits that appeared once before.

Attempting to talk to these spirits is a moot point, made obvious by their immediate assault on anyone they get close to. They attack with claws and teeth, with limbs far stronger than they have any right to be, and the green eyes, as they are wont to do, will try to get into your head. Somehow, they seem to know what it is that scares you most, and they don't seem too hesitant to use it. It's not clear what they want— are they here to eradicate you? To frighten you? To send a message?

Whatever the case, one thing is very clear: you and everyone else, sleeping or waking, are in serious danger. Are you ready to defend Beacon?

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I did.

[not a bad answer. maybe they should've brought the unconscious bodies here, instead of packing them all in the Invincible]

[there's a small pang of guilt when Riku admits to thinking about what might've happened if it were attacked, too. there's still the possibility that it could be, especially now that Akira's plan to use the Invincible as a stronghold has been compromised by his big mouth]

. . . it may already be far more dangerous there than here, anyway.

[a sharp exhale]

They know we're using it as a home base.

[theoretically. . . what]

[. . .]

Okay.

[he isn't curious enough to ask]

Scientific levitation. . . got it. I'll-- ah. Be back in ten.

[OFF HE GOES INDEED]

[that voice snaps Akira out of whatever shocked stupor had clouded his brain, and he-- he recognizes that face. that's. . .]

L-- Lutece-san?

[but even though he's capable of recognizing her, his gaze is a bit glassy, a bit distant. he's leaning heavily against the wall as his head swims, as though his legs might give out from underneath him at any moment. and his ribs ache]

[still. . . the nasty gash on her throat doesn't escape his notice, and despite his own injuries that he's still reeling from, Akira comments]

Your-- a-are you okay?

[always putting someone else first]

[That's at least how she remembers it. The party was calm and there was no trouble until that horn went off.]

I still don't know. Having her attack us is counterproductive if we want to fix this place.

[she gives him a look]

I can't judge someone whose eyes I didn't see in person. It's easy to lie over the written word. I need to talk to her, face to face, before I decide.

Until then, she's on the radar of "cooperate with but don't trust completely"

I'm far better than you are right now.

[But though his eyes are glassy and unfocused, he at least knows who she is. He can focus on the present. That's lucky, as far as concussions go; if his luck holds, he might not even vomit from it. Which means the next issue to tackle are his ribs and that limp arm.]

Can you stand?

[You got no idea, Akira. He's coming up on his century mark. Of course, huge chunks of that was spent in cryofreeze, but still. The Soldier turns back to the kitchen.]

There you go.

[At some point they're going to start asking people exactly how magic works, but right now they're just going to let it lie. The important thing to ask, while checking on the stew simmering on the stove,]

What else can you do? Can you fight?

[ Right? Steve's got no idea about that D&D stuff, but if he was ever going to call a monster anything, it'd be 'Mindflayer'. ]

Demons invading dreams? Yikes. Well, that's no walk in the park either, I can imagine.

[ His eyes briefly flick over to the bar where half of the town is asleep right now. ]

Hey, you don't think these creepy crawlies out here have that kind of power, do you?

[ Riku doesn't blame people for using the Invincible. It's close, familiar, it has pretty much everything they need, and not everyone has experiences that would help them identify defensible structures or risks.

Fortunately, the spirits aren't really going for the dreamers, as Riku will learn later. It's just them, the ones who didn't eat. ]

Yeah, they do.

They've been watching us for a while, I think. Maybe from the start. The spirits even have started getting closer to the armory. Not sure how safe it'll be for long.

[ He offers after a moment: ]

You could stay here. It doesn't help the others... but...

[ Seeing him alive was... relieving doesn't begin to describe it. The feelings within her were so much more than just relief but she couldn't begin to try discerning a more fitting word. He was her anchor in this place and the sight of that smile broke her heart in the best ways.

But then he fell against the tree and she was beside him in a second, setting her lantern aside in a hurry to get her hands on him instead. One went to his cheek and the other his chest, no thought given to the blood and grime covering him. ]

I'm okay, I promise. But you're hurt.

[ It took every ounce of willpower within her to resist the siren call of his blood, her hunger and instincts trying to force her to follow those predatory urges. So instead of the blood, she focused on the sound of his breathing, the rapid beating of his heart, worry and fear etched into her expression. ]

Let me try to help. It won't be perfect but it might take the edge off.

[ Ellever finds the nearest place to sit down, chuckling quietly when he talks about not knowing about grilled cheese. Her father doesn't know how to cook, either, other than slapping two pieces of bread and some fixings together; it runs in her adoptive family. ]

Since you died... here? Wow, you learn fast. I've tried to look up videos on the internet but, uh, I usually burn everything.

[ It's her attention span that's her downfall, more than anything. Cooking can be dull. Reading isn't. Sometimes she can force herself to focus, but usually she gets absorbed in an article on the internet and — there goes that. ]

I guess you must like it?

I do. It's defined steps to an expected outcome. It's soothing. Plus then you get to eat something afterwards.

[They bring one bowl-- full of thick broth, soft-boiled beef, potatoes, carrots, and onions-- over to Elle. The other they keep. Because the Soldier wasn't kidding when they said they tend to eat twice as much as anyone else. They're just about always hungry, particularly now that they're not sleeping.]

It requires patience and attention to detail. But I'm programmed with both those traits.

"I don't think so either. Cool."

He honestly wouldn't blame Riku for not trusting him with anything, since they're effectively strangers who happen to know each other's names at this point. If either Noctis or Ignis were on the cart, he'd put himself in charge of them. Besides, Day looks potentially hazardous if Prompto were to move the wrong way while carrying him, so it's just as well.

Coraline definitely doesn't seem to be alive, though, and Prompto gives her a skeptical glance, as well as a worried look in Riku's direction. Corpses aren't something he wants to deal with, even if they're of friends of friends.

"She's...alive, right? I mean, it's not a big deal, I've still got her." And indeed he does, scooping her up carefully and peering more closely at her face. Maybe she's just a really, really deep sleeper.

No hurt. Us helping.

[The spirit tilts its masked head.]

Let us help.

[And then, simultaneously, all of them spring into action. It's jarring, after how still and silent they've been (outside of the giggling), to see them all reach into their sacks or under their linen clothes, pulling out what look like some very sharp kitchen knives. Two of them, the one tapping out morse code included, go for the Soldier. The other two go for Xayah.

They continue to laugh in their childish voices.]

Edited (whoops formatting) 2019-12-03 07:42 (UTC)

The green-eyed hound's jaws fill Crowley's vision entirely, snapping shut— mere centimeters before they would've reached him. The creature manages to dodge its tossed companion, but the Soldier nabs its rear leg and jerks it out of the air.

The hands come back, this time with faces attached, the forms of past handlers, of the ones who shocked him and dragged him to the chair. The hound fights for all it's worth, thrashing and snarling and biting at anything it can reach as it tries to regain control of the Soldier's panic-stricken mind. It mostly ignores Crowley's leash, apparently having bigger problems on its plate.

But the other hound doesn't have any problems, aside from a few stab wounds. It picks up where the green-eyed one left off, trying to eat Crowley's face.

They're really just juggling monsters at this point, huh?

[What happens to him is that he gets very bitten, the spirit's teeth crushing down on his hand, strong enough to break the bones. But hey, at least his holding tactic works— Cao Pi is able to take his swings, slicing cleanly through the sheet of fabric, and...

Well, not through anything else.

The sheet, and apparently the monster, is now in two pieces, though the cloth on the lower half doesn't fall, and nothing seems to be peeking out between the two halves. It's like the creature is still together, except that it's not.

This is made all the more unsettling when the thing abruptly lets go of Javert's hand and twists around, its top half facing Cao Pi while its spindly hoofed legs still point toward Javert. Its expression is as close as something like that can come to indignant, and then it's back to trying to rake the flesh from Cao Pi's face, head, arms— whatever it can reach, really.]

[The spirit screams, a long, drawn-out cry like a hunting falcon mixed with an enraged horse. High and low all at once. It clashes with the shield, claws scrabbling at the barrier before it flaps its huge wings and surges back upward.

It circles them, slowly at first, and then a second time much quicker. It tilts down into a steep dive, teeth snapping, trying to get in behind the shield.]

The hound is fighting something as strong as it is, and that already has a grip on it. Hound teeth mostly hit torn leather on the flesh arm, kevlar on the chest and neck, some flesh on the right hand, claws scoring on the Soldier's face.

But hands and handlers just mean that the Soldier thinks the thing it has is one of them. The mind doesn't clearly remember what the Chair does, but the body knows it means pain and terror and burningblindingnothingness, and there isn't enough familiarity yet to make it sit down willingly. It is not letting that happen again, even if it has to tear the hound's/handler's throat right out with its bare hands. Even if it has to tear them in half. And that's what it's trying to do, with the hound/hands/handlers coming right up into its face: dig the metal fingers in tight around the offered throat, with the hind leg still in the flesh hand, and rip.

Crowley's on his own for the moment, though. At least his assailant is damaged from pummeling and knife wounds, right?

[One from above, and one from below; a human fighter would have little chance of stopping both, and little time to even choose which one to block and which one to be struck by. But of course, this isn't a human opponent.

The spirit leans into the motion of its swing at Riku, and, much like him, it takes the energy from his push against its blade. What results is a graceful spin and a less-than-graceful twisting of the limbs in order to bring the onyx swords once more to clash with both blades. But it doesn't manage the double-block before Riku slices through a bit of its cloak, and Vanitas' blade winds up nearly pressed into the spirit's shoulder. Its arms are stopped in unnatural positions, shivering slightly from the effort of holding back two strong fighters.

But rather than remain locked in this standstill, the spirit does something sudden and perhaps unexpected. It withdraws its blades simultaneously, nearly too fast to track, and ducks low to slip between its opponents and gain some distance. It moves like an automaton, completely inactive and then a flurry of motion in less than an instant.]

[Naturally at the approach of flying ice shards, the creature hunches its shoulders and attempts to move backwards. But of course, that's not an option. Stopped by the shield, it vanishes for a moment in a cloud of raining ice.

And then immediately emerges again once the shining dust clears. The monster rises back up on all fours, pierced here and there by spikes of ice and leaking some sort of black fluid that might be blood. But with a dog-like shake of its shoulders, the spirit removes most of the shards, and then quickly fixes its attention back on its prey.

It breathes out a kind of rumbling growl, accompanied by a foul stench. And then it charges again, with a mouth open wide enough to engulf one of its opponents.]

There are indeed more of the little makeshift spears, some slapping uselessly against Rosinante on their sides, while others stab into his clothes. He does manage to knock some of the spirits away using one of their own, and the Soldier helps by dragging two more off of him. If Rosi wants to go, now is the time, before another wave of the annoying things comes to replace them.

The big spirit is staggered by having two smaller ones chucked directly at its... face? The center of it, anyway. It stumbles back a few steps, teeters, but ultimately retains its balance using the log it's been wielding.

Once they realize that the Soldier isn't trying to escape, the confused little spirits don't try to drag him as much, but instead focus on pelting him with rocks, much like their counterparts on top of the juggernaut.]

[The horse doesn't turn as quickly as a smaller human, no, instead struggling to stop itself so that it can try to follow. But as it manages to slid to an awkward halt, Akira turns on it and unleashes his power.

The horse rears again, screaming as the dark tendrils slam into it. Apparently the explosion was enough to take off one of the spirit's front limbs, which falls to the ground, leaking a distinctly blood-like liquid.

And then the limb twitches and slides back toward the main body of the horse, already on the move, and rises up and back into place. Hm.

At least it gives the two an opportunity to get more of a head start? The horse isn't giving up the chase that easily, though.]

These things seem prepared for anything, and this is certainly a worst case scenario that is coming a lot sooner than she'd thought. She had foolishly assumed that the closer they got to the light house, the more perilous things would get.

When his sunglasses topple, she does make an attempt to grapple for them, but she misses and they drop; she makes a mental note to perhaps ask Rastus for a new pair for him whenever she gets the chance. What's worse, is that she can see them bounce off of something just beneath them, and she frowns, brow creasing for a moment before her gaze turns back to Crowley. She can hear something absolutely hissing at them as it circles.

"It's alright, you needn't worry about me. Do what you must, I'll try and fend anything off," she offers gently, nodding her head.

Uh huh, yeah. Most of our spells have words? But. It's not in English? And if it's in English, it's in some old dialect that no-one uses anymore. But yeah, we use words for most of them, or some-- some magicians are powerful enough that they don't need them? Eliot-- [He nods back at the sleeper] he can do physical magic, more things around. With his mind and nothing else.

I can't do that. But I can mend things? Little things, and I don't even have to concentrate all that hard on it. It's-- everyone has something they're very good at? And mine is minor mending.

Can you conjure fire? That's a pretty easy spell.

[ If they manage to make it far enough to assess what happened, Riku will be grateful she knew to keep where he'd pressed her; friendly fire's never friendly.

As it stands, his ears are ringing from the awful sound, he hears the spirit shriek and feels the blow shudder up his arms, hears another sound and thinks that must be Rosalind's shout. There's a change in the scent of this Darkness and, recognizing hers, he reaches for her, finding the bend of her elbow. Her skin feels wet and warm.

Riku is already turning to get them away from the injured spirit, realizing a few moments later she must be bleeding. Did he hit her? Or did that spirit--

The Darkness begins to unfurl away from them, as it begins to fade he sees the cart. Turning it onto its side proves something of a hassle, but he doesn't see any other way of getting it through the door. He kicks out with a foot, knocking the alarm further into the lab.

The two of them, working together, can shove the cart outside faster than one alone. ]

Together we can do it, then get on!

One of these days, Riku would be interested in hearing about these experiences, not because of some sadistic pleasure in hearing about the suffering using magic seemed to inevitably bring to those who used it in Quentin's universe. It's because hearing about other, new worlds has ever been a subject of wonder and fascination, since stars fell across the sky of his little world and the next day brought a small girl from another world to their shores. It's the limitless potential, the possibilities that fill up a term so simple as "other worlds".

Sometimes he sees Quentin muttering, his hands fluttering through a series of practiced motions, arcane gestures, and Riku feels the prickle of magic. There isn't always a visual indication of success or failure, so he can only try to read the weary signs on Quentin's face, whether he's frustrated or resigned.

He's seen how he looks at his friend, the casual care when he tends to him. They're close friends, Riku thinks, that or-

"Yeah," Riku sighs, and it's kind of a toss up whether he means wondering what they'll do if their friends don't wake up, the fact of their need for water, or that comment, the one about how there's something about that river. He remembers the time a bunch of them tried to appeal to the things living in it, they made gifts and trinkets, thinking it would be a spirit like those in town. He remembers the river erupting into a chorus of drowning people begging for help. It brought back all the old stories told to scare kids into respecting the sea, tales of the drowned and hungry ghosts that haunt the undertows of his tropical home.

He's tired, dirty, and the illusion of lost weight is just that, an illusion, because the clothes he needed to stay warm in the coming winter came from the general store and it's tough to find stuff in his size that will still fit the parts of him that are just plain bigger than the average guy. Try moving those arms in a shirt with skinny sleeves.

"That's not entirely true," Riku admits, "I'm gonna guess nobody told you. In this world, if you sleep enough, you can go without food or water. Or if you're eating well, you can go without sleep. You can't go without both for long."

And he knows, how?

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EVENT LOG: ENTER MR SANDMAN (DEFENDERS)

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cw: animal gore ig???

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