logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: ENTER MR SANDMAN (DEFENDERS)

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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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Yeah, color him likewise full of doubt. "She's hiding something," he says, angry and not even caring who overhears. "Not just something, a lot of things. I don't trust her at all and now, this attack out of nowhere from the same spirits which responded to her so-called mistaken call..."

Miscommunication his ass, basically. "If she can communicate with them, why not call them off now? Unless no one has thought to contact her and ask."

"I've been so busy, I hadn't even tried," he admits. "Try her. Why not. Worst she'll do is not respond."

Which is, he figures, most likely what will happen. But who knows? She must be aware of what's going on, she always is. And something, or someone - a spirit, possibly - had co-opted her usual weekly notification post, which he had shut off as soon as he saw it.

It's a damn shame Will is snoozing beside him. He's far more reliable when it comes to answering questions, or at least trying.

Yeah, the bizarre broadcast rather than the weekly bulletin has him concerned as well. Cao Pi lifts his eyes to the ceiling, or rather a suggestion of the rooms above. "My tablet is in my room. I will do so once I can get it. I would rather rule her out than make assumptions that could well be wrong."

His gaze then goes across to the bar itself. Oh god does he need a glass of wine but that requires effort to get up and fetch.

"I can help move the barricades if you need," he offers. He's tired, but not too tired to make himself useful. He and Javert had blocked off the stairs as much as possible earlier to prevent spirits from coming in from the upstairs windows. The Invincible is not as invincible as its name implies with all those extra entrances, after all.

And yeah, he sees that glance toward the bar also, but while Cao Pi can do whatever he wishes, Rosinante intends to abstain. A modest amount of alcohol might fog up his tired brain even more, and that's not going to fly. Instead, he reaches into a pocket to withdraw a cigarette, then offers the pack to Cao Pi in case he's changed his opinion on the things.

Nope, not yet. Nice try, though, so he simply waves a hand to dismiss the offer. "In time. It's not worth doing merely so I can run upstairs for a tablet. When there are other reasons to go, run several errands at once." It's only logical, and has nothing to do with exhaustion.

After a moment, glancing subtly around to make sure no one else is going to eavesdrop, Zihuan quietly mutters something he doesn't want to get around. Namely, that he's at a loss for a solution to end this fight and wants to pick brains for better ways to wait it out. "If we can't wake the others up," he frets, "the rest of us are going to reach a breaking point. We need reinforcements and this time, there are none unless the sleepers can be roused."

There are infinitely more spirits than their own numbers, it's true and he knows it. It's a war of attrition that they're guaranteed to lose if the others don't awaken, and even then they probably can't hold off the spirits forever if their attacks don't let up. That's what a reset is, after all.

So the real answer of course is that if that looks to be the situation, he'll go through Will's things, find his tablet, and see if anyone awake is capable of breaking into it and working out whatever he knows that kept him alive to meet their current group. But he's not prepared to even suggest that just yet.

"We need to decide when the cutoff is," he says, not quite answering the question directly. "I mean, how long do we wait for them to wake up before we take who's left alive and try something else?"

What a thing to have to decide. But, that's why he puts himself out in front, Cao Pi can't backtrack now. "How long does anyone let a battle go on before calling it?" he asks rhetorically, rubbing his forehead. "We can outlast a siege so long as defenses hold and supplies don't become critical. There are some with powers that would let them easily resupply from the shop. However..." He gives Rosinante a grim look. "...if this were to last until the next ferry and batch of supplies, a whole new host of problems would arise. We need information."

Which means he'll have to go up to get his tablet after all. Damn. All right, give him a moment to stretch his legs and check the edge of his blade, just in case any spirits have busted through the windows and raided their rooms. "Are you prepared to cover me, so I can run upstairs?"

"I can." He has a few rounds of ammo left for his pistol, should it be needed. But he'll go retrieve one of the swords he and Javert brought down earlier as well. It's about time he started carrying one here, now that they have plenty available. With a bit more effort than usual, he staggers upright and shifts Mary around onto his back. Not going far, no reason to leave her behind.

"Just going to grab a backup weapon first," he says as he first retrieves his lantern, then crosses the room to the trunk full of swords and selects a decently-large sabre, though it's smaller than something he'd personally prefer. It'll do, as he attaches it to his belt opposite the lantern. "After you," then, he says with a nod as he unholsters his pistol. With any luck, the stairs above the barricade will just be empty.

Yeah, he'd really like to go an hour without having to defend himself, right about now. Cao Pi does his best to struggle through the barricade without removing too many pieces, especially the load-bearing ones, though Rosinante probably won't get through at his size if he doesn't at least tear down a part of it. Just move this here, edge that over there...

It's damn dark upstairs with only their lanterns to light the way. Harder to notice spirits, but maybe easier to catch the glow of their eyes? Whatever, he's only on the second floor anyway, he can quickly dash up and go get it, and be done with it.

Yeah, considering the barricade had been built to keep out even the smaller spirits, it's a bit of a struggle for Rosinante, who sighs as he dismantles some of their work, then lets whoever else is standing by downstairs that they're going up, and to seal it back off if they're not down in a few minutes. It's just not worth the risk to those asleep downstairs to keep their defenses down for the sake of two people.

But once doors and bedframes and tables have been rearranged so he can get through, Rosinante stumbles the rest of the way up the stairs, lands on his palms instead of on his face (good catch, for once) and then keeps both his gun and his light high, watching for any movement as he follows Cao Pi.

He winces when Rosinante hits the deck, but all that noise doesn't seem to make any difference and it doesn't seem to have harmed Mary at all. Good lord man can you please get it together. Cao Pi's room is near the end, 209, so there's a ways to go to get there but nothing comes at him on the way, so. Quickly! Into the room and snatching the pad from the makeshift desk near the door, and back out again, not even bothering to close the door fully. If things are breaking in upstairs, that door isn't going to slow them down even for a second.

"There, that's it," he mutters, waving for his comrade to turn around and lead the way. They're not here to hang around and see whether or not the place is crawling with killer spirits, that's not a problem for two to solve.

"Good." Quick and easy, and solves Cao Pi's questionable choice of leaving his tablet anywhere unattended in the first place. He's eager to head back and restore the barricade, which he sets to working on once both of them are back through. No point hanging around on the other side of it.

And once that's finished, he's quite content to slump back into the seat he'd left moments ago, spinning Mary around to his chest again first so he can lean against the wall. A shame the fall hadn't woken her up, but he hadn't expected it to. And right now, he's kind of jealous, anyway. If this ever comes to an end, he wants to get all that sleep he's having to miss out on.

While he's on his feet Cao Pi has the option of going to get that drink, but now that he's here..nah. First, he needs to send that message, if it gets through, but no sooner does he connect to the network and the strange, garbled video comes up in place of the weekly bulletin. It's startling, and for a moment he just stares at the glitching static image, and then shows it to Rosinante. "What is...what is that?"

He looks over, then immediately squints and shakes his head as he looks away. It's bright and hard to look at. "Dunno. Saw it earlier too, but I couldn't make any sense of it. Maybe the spirits did something to the cables from the lighthouse."

Which, fuck them if they did because installing those cost them people's lives, but it wouldn't be hard to tamper with the cables either if something really wanted to. The image itself is unsettling, too, in a way he can't quite put his finger on. Maybe it's a normal kind of problem in things like tablet networks? He doesn't have enough experience to know, but he really doesn't like how his mind keeps trying to turn the distorted image into a mouth, a face, an eye.

Zihuan also doesn't know enough about the internet to make guesses at what might cause this, so if Rosinante has no information that can help, he'll have to ignore it. "Now I'm not entirely certain I should try to send a message, then," he frets. "If the spirits have somehow managed to intercept, either by being at the lighthouse or otherwise...she will never get it."

He can still try, but now he definitely won't be surprised if he doesn't get an answer.

"Try anyway," he says with a shrug. "She definitely won't get it if you never send it."

One strange messed-up image isn't really a reason to stop using the network for its usual purpose. Shouldn't be, anyway. It could mean all sorts of things but he can't do any better than guess, and the person he'd normally turn to for help in understanding the network is completely passed out on his left. Option number two, Daylight, is laid out along the north wall, similarly asleep, or whatever passes for sleep when you're a robot.

"Who else here knows much about the tablets, anyway?" he asks. "Do you know of anyone who's good with them and also still awake?"

He looks up and around; who else here would be a whiz with the tablet, that he's on good terms with? Jason? Kuai Liang? Quen...tin...? It really does feel like most of those who hesitated eating the food are those from times long past and worlds where the sword had not yet been supplanted by the gun. "I'll ask around," Cao Pi sighs, "once the next shift comes in from patrol." No sense taking someone with a weapon away from the fight.

He pops open the program for drawing on the screen and does as he always does with texts now, thanks Will: using his fingertip to quickly scrawl characters which turn into Chinese text, which is then translated as it gets sent. He might not know much about it but goddamn Will has made it so he can basically write as he would with a brush and scroll and off it goes. Between this and coffee he's not going to get on the modern world's case.

"Mm." The answer satisfies him well enough. It's just curiosity, really, since the reality is they don't have the time or resources to devote much to the tablets right now when every person awake is busy with defense in one way or another - even the two of them, in a way, by resting up until they go back out, and meanwhile staying ready should any of the spirits manage to make their way inside.

The mystery does make him think to do something he hadn't earlier, and so he withdraws his own tablet from an inner coat pocket and pages through to that strange image, then saves a copy of it. Just in case it somehow changes or vanishes from the network before Will or Day get a chance to have a look at it. That's certainly one of his own favorite things about this technology - the ease with which backups can be made and distributed. Sure could've come in handy not all that long ago.

"And now we wait," he sighs. Wait for Robin, wait for the people around them to wake up and for the spirits to stop their attacks. All things that may never come. In his mind, he's already trying to come up with alternatives - perhaps they should work on digging a basement, somewhere sturdy to retreat to without windows where they can hole up and fend off the spirits in the bottleneck. Of course, if the spirits are clever enough, they would simply flood the room. They don't seem capable of complex strategy, but their variation makes them unpredictable. Cigarette in hand, he stares out at the room and its makeshift defenses, then faces Cao Pi. "If any of us survive this, we need to get serious about emergency plans in this town."

"...yes." It's been lurking in the back of his thoughts ever since he took the first swing at a spirit next to Jason, in the square, but eh this is a good time to let it out. Cao Pi sighs hard through his nose. "This sort of situation is exactly what I was hoping to prevent. Maybe now the rest will listen when we say, we must act, and act quickly, rather than sit around grousing about who wants to be in charge." He glances sidelong at Rosinante. "No one has contacted me about wanting to help."

Well, Kol did, sort of. And he came to some sort of understanding with Quentin. But no one directly. Assuming they all survive - or come back, if it comes to that - he's going to have a few things to say again.

"Nobody wants the responsibility. Or wants to be seen as taking control over others," he sighs as he tips his head back against the wall, for he understands. They're just a bunch of people from disparate worlds, with different skills and cultures and training. They're not going to spontaneously organize themselves but they don't all have the discipline to want someone to make them become organized. Independence is great until it gets people stuck out in the dark alone with green-eyed monsters.

"And even if a few agree to take charge, they might go missing or be killed, meanwhile every month new people come in who have to all agree to what's been organized before them, without their input." It's a mess and he's just sort of venting now too, but it's not productive. He takes a long draw from the cigarette, lets it out slowly. "What do you want me to do?"

He doesn't want responsibility either, he's far more content to let others run the show. But more than that, he doesn't want people wandering off and getting killed due to a lack of organized planning.

Ah, there's a twist Cao Pi hadn't considered back when he called the first meeting. Then, it hadn't been a noticeable thing - people disappearing or dying but somehow not coming back the way others had. Enough time has now passed that they can say for sure that it is a thing, and one that has to be accounted for in any organization.

"There is that," he concedes, before mulling it over. Rosinante is one of his better resources, someone whose skills should be pointed toward doing the best job he can. His response comes in a murmur that's more a sign of honesty than wanting to keep anyone from overhearing. "You have an excellent repertoire with many more people than I do." He's noticed. Rosinante is friendly with a great many more people. "Is there a way to sound them out? Find out what they most need, or what they fear. There are plenty of people here with skills who are already using them, but what of the others, who think they're not worth anything? If they're holding back, I should like to know how to reassure them."

Contrary to ye olde iron fist rulers, Cao Pi knows the value of listening to one's advisors. Taking the will of the people into account. Prioritizing stability over might. He's not just not very good at being the one sitting down and holding hands with the people.

"I can do that," he says after a moment of consideration. "It will take some time, though."

Not all of them will want to divulge those personal wants and hopes and fears directly, but he doesn't need them to. He picks up on things that aren't said. Comes with the job. And it's this general tendency to collect information on people that has led him to be friendly with so many, even if he doesn't personally consider all of them friends. It's easier to get people to talk to you when they like you, after all. It's just practical.

"Naturally. But it would be worth it." Even if doing so uncovered a worthier person to unite them than Cao Zihuan. After all, for one to survive and go on from this weird world of darkness to something (hopefully) better, they all have to survive, and that isn't done by putting his ego ahead of everything else. At least, he'll say so, but damn that ego is hard to control sometimes.

"You have been a patient ear when I need it," he adds after a moment, resting the tablet in his lap, the sword against his leg, and leaning very slightly against Rosinante. He's big, he probably won't even feel it. "For that, I'm grateful. And yet I do little in turn except wield my blade when you need it."

The contact is unexpected, and he turns to look at Cao Pi for a moment, then rests his head back against the wall again. Wouldn't have predicted it, but he's not bothered.

"If this leads to these people ending up unified a little more, and a little less chaos the next time something like this happens, then you'll have done more than enough to pay me back." And if not, so be it. Some things might just be out of their control, but it doesn't mean they can't try.

"You are an altruist at heart, aren't you?" It's dry, vaguely teasing, but no judging here. Cao Pi may not be so kindhearted but it's not exactly a fatal flaw. Not always, anyway. "Such a cheap payment, I'll have to do better."

He settles in and falls silent, checking his tablet now and then even though he really has no reason to expect anyone should write him back so quickly, or at all. And then even that small movement stops, at which point it's fairly easy to notice that his head has drooped and he's lightly dozing where he sits. So much for not needing sleep while dead...

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EVENT LOG: ENTER MR SANDMAN (DEFENDERS)

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