logsinthenight | EVENT LOG: WILD HEART PART ONE

EVENT LOG: WILD HEART PART ONE

EVENT LOG:
WILD HEART PART ONE

characters: everyone.
location: the medical center; all in town.
date/time: march 20-22.
content: half the town is captured; the other half comes to their rescue.
warnings: torture, possible character death.

to think everything must die for anyone to matter.

Welcome to part one of the WILD HEART event! The prompts below are intended to cover all the main parts of the event, but you're all free to take your own liberties with the details. The prompts are meant to add flavor, not to limit you.

Kimiko and the gang will make their debut in part two! If you've got questions for the Hunt, they'll be available in the next event log. If you've got questions for us, hit up the OOC post!

captives.

KIDNAPPED

You wake to hands gripping you, muffling your shout of surprise and pinning your limbs to your sides. Spirits large and small surround you, staring at you blankly as they lift you out of bed. You have the sickening sense of movement, and suddenly you're outside-- you can see the flickering of the bonfire flame, feel the chill of the spring air. You have just enough time to renew your struggle once more before a spirit's hand raises, flying down to strike you on the temple, and then you know no more.

When you wake, you're in a room that seems long since abandoned. Cracked tiles are chilly beneath you, and the walls are a nondescript, faded color you can't make out. You're far from alone, though: at least twenty others surround you, waking up slowly.

Why are you locked in here? What's going on? Nobody may have answers yet, but at least you can be confused together.

TORTURE

Of course, you aren't confused for long. Soon the door opens, and without warning you're grabbed by a large spirit, dragged along whether to cooperate or not. You're led into an enormous room full of what must have once been sterile medical equipment, ranging from gurneys to scalpels and everything in between. Pushed onto an operating table, your arms are spread out, strapped down; further straps are pulled tight against your legs, your hips, keeping you still.

A green-eyed spirit comes into your line of vision. They hover over you, staring down blankly. Breathes heavily . . . and then, slowly, reaches for you.

CW: hallucinations

In an instant, you're somewhere else. Somewhere darker. Where? Only you know, because it's a nightmare personalized just for you. The scene of your darkest nightmare, a jagged mix of all the worst things you fear. It's endless, cruel in its relentlessness-- and just when you think it may be over, it melts seamlessly into another, and another. Your insecurities, your failures, your terrors, your loved ones bloody and dead, joining you in this endless purgatory dimension . . .

Or maybe it's not as personal as that. Maybe you simply wake up in a room: white, blank, featureless. Devoid of doors or windows, with no colors to break up your vision, and the only sounds the ones you generate. You scream, maybe, or pry at the walls. Perhaps you sit, assuming this will end soon, that you'll wake up soon and be perfectly all right.

But it doesn't end. Not for minutes, and those melt into hours-- and those melt into days, maybe, except you don't know, because you're trapped there. You don't grow hungry or thirsty; sometimes you sleep, and when you wake, you're still in the room. You're still in the room no matter what you do, or so it seems, caught in the hallucinations as you are.

CW: gore, blood-mixing

The scalpel that slices into you is slow and steady, piercing and splitting skin with terrible effciency. Flesh parts beneath the rusted blade, blood welling immediately to the surface, gushing forth and spilling down the sides of your body-- but suddenly you aren't so concerned with the blood, because the pain's hit and it is nothing, nothing you can ignore. White-hot and piercing, and maybe you're screaming and maybe you try to keep silent but it doesn't matter because either way it does not stop. Not until the spirit is through, cutting into you all over, your legs and your arms and your stomach and your chest, slicing you open like a butcher with his cut of meat, so terribly impersonal as you writhe in agony.

And then, suddenly, it ends. Just like that.

Cutting's only the first part, after all.

Setting the scalpel down, they reach for a bucket next, filled with a dark liquid. Dipping their fingers into it-- and you know, suddenly, that it's blood-- they smear it into the open wounds. Over and over, coating them in it, scooping out your own blood so they can replace it with their supply, like the world's crudest attempt at a blood transfusion. They care not for your pain, nor the way you struggle and writhe; they care only about replacing every single drop of blood in your body.

CW: force-feeding, hints of cannibalism

Your mouth is pried open by a spirit's dextrous fingers, knocking against your teeth, dodging your tongue so they can get a good hook in your jaw. The smell of blood is thick in the air, mixing with a particularly sweet stench that you can't place. There's blood on the spirit's fingers, too, and you choke on the taste of it as it mixes with your saliva and slips down your throat.

With their other hand they grip bloody chunks of meat. In a moment of horrifying clarify you realize what's about to happen just a split-second before it does, but it's too late to protest. The spirit shoves the meat into your mouth, so deep into your throat you gag in a reflex attempt not to choke. Blood pours down your throat, the meat slimy in its rawness, but the spirit refuses to let you spit it out: they cover your mouth and nose, cutting off your air, until you chew and swallow. Not just the one piece, but more and more.

If you look down, you'll see a hint as to what you're being fed: there's a few fingers scattered in the meat, a tongue, an eyeball . . . and a few feet away, a mask, broken and discarded. One of the spirits that had brought you here.

DOWNTIME

After all the tortures you've gone through, you've lost all sense of time. But at least you're not alone: all around you are the faces of those kidnapped alongside you. Some are sporting injuries similar to yours; others seem to nurse invisible ones, flinching at shadows or gagging at the smell of blood.

Perhaps you're too injured to do anything but rest. But perhaps not. Do you try and aid the others? There's plenty hurt who need some attention, whether it be medicine or simple emotional comfort. Or maybe you're more focused on the future instead of the present, desperately plotting an escape before your captors come back.

ESCAPE

Movement, noise, all different from the chirps and hoots you've grown accustomed to over the past three days (and that's to say nothing of the screams of your fellow captives). There's shouting, voices deep and piping both, indistinct words echoing down the hallway and into your disbeliving ears. Hallucinations? No, they're too insistent and chaotic for that. It feels too good to be true, but it is. They're human voices.

The rescue is underway.

Now what? Do you try and break free? Shout to let the others know where you are? Or perhaps you're too injured for that. Perhaps you want to help those who are even worse off than you, weakened by their tortures. Whatever you do, decide quickly: it isn't long before someone breaks down the door and urges you to flee into the night, where the Wild Hunt awaits, ready to guide you back to town.

rescuers.

WAKING

Friday morning, the town feels emptier than usual. The population has never been enormous, of course, but even still, as you go through your morning routine, you find there's simply fewer people around. Surely they're not all asleep, right? And weren't you supposed to meet someone after breakfast, anyway? But there's nothing.

It doesn't take long before you and the others realize what's happened. At least twenty residents, if not more, have simply vanished. Are they dead? It seems unlikely. What about missing? But it seems strange that so many would simply disappear, and even if they did, where would they go?

You aren't the only one asking these questions. Soon everyone is talking about it, and that only invites even more questions. Some people want to go into the woods to search; others suggest caution, waiting and seeing. The debate seems endless-- until someone points out that there seems to be a more immediate situation on hand.

They melt out of the shadows, not magically so much as very, very good at blending in with the trees and the darkness. Clad in cloaks, mirrors masking their faces, they number at least fifty strong. There's no aggression in their posture; rather, they seem to be waiting for something. Someone.

She doesn't keep them waiting for long.

A woman dressed in a tailored suit emerges. Her mask is tied to her hip. Her gaze is steady, but there's warmth there as well as she looks around at all of you.

"Your friends aren't dead," she says. "They haven't disappeared, either. One of my scouts saw them being taken a few hours ago. If you wish to save them, you're going to need our help. We know where they plan on taking your friends, and we know how to fight. We'll teach you how to save your friends with the minimal amount of loss.

"My name is Kimiko Yasutake, and I am the current leader of the Wild Hunt.

Now. Are you ready to learn?"

TRAINING

You work. You sweat. The regiment Kimiko and her fellows put you through isn't easy, but she wasn't lying: she really does know what she's doing. By the end of the day not only do you know how to sufficiently wield a spear or a knife, but what to do if you're outnumbered or surrounded. You know what to do against an enemy taller than you; you know what to do should you be left without a weapon.

Whether or not you do any of these things is up to you, of course. Instruction can't replace muscle memory. But at least you know the basics, and that's worth something. Besides: you have all day to practice, and members of the Wild Hunt are eager to help correct you as you do.

RESCUE

The captives are evidently being held in the surgical wing and its adjoining operating rooms, and the abandoned hospital halls make for a contained battlefield. Most of the regular forest spirits scatter when the assault begins, skittering out of windows or barreling straight past the attacking residents, not interested in fighting for this cause... But not all. The meaner spirits stay to fight, perhaps just for the thrill of it.

And then of course there's the green-eyed spirits. There aren't many, maybe only a dozen or so, but they're strong. They typically look roughly humanoid (not always, though) and their limbs are ...troubling, in a too-long sort of way. They prefer to fight from a distance when possible, inflicting terrible hallucinations of monsters and gore and whatever they think might put off an attacker—and these hallucinations are powerful enough to do real damage. Just because it's a hallucination that tore off your arm doesn't mean your arm is any less torn off! But when they're forced to confront their attackers in close quarters, they rely on those long limbs to tear and rip at anything they can get their hands (or teeth) on. The green-eyed spirits can be killed just like any other forest spirit, but it'll take some doing. Dismembering them until their body dissolves is the only way to make sure they won't come back.

The plan is simple: surround the medical center as covertly as possible before Kimiko gives some signal to her crew. The key to victory is overwhelming the enemy as completely as possible, from all angles at once—and that's what happens.

The hospital halls force the spirits into a bottleneck; some stay to defend the operating rooms while others attempt to sneak through the windows or the ventilation shafts to attack you from behind. The green-eyed spirits shriek horrible melodies that echo through the hospital, loud enough that their voices might damage your hearing if you're standing too close. The spirits don't use much in the way of weapons, at least, but they'll hurl any debris or furniture that gets in their way.

But your numbers are greater than theirs. Progress is made quickly as the green-eyeds are forced to retreat little by little, until they've lost their claim on the operating rooms, and thus the battle. Most of them will escape back into the forest before they can be eradicated, and surely both sides have suffered losses—but you've won.

(many of our monster images are credited to Trevor Henderson!)

RETURN

The green-eyed spirits flee back to the forest before long, and the surgical wing is left open for the rescuers to free the captives. The Wild Hunt hangs back as the rescuers reunite with their friends and fellow residents, although they're step in to assist with any medical emergencies as needed—enough of them have rudimentary training in field medicine, and they'll be able to patch up any survivors enough to get them back to town.

There are survivors, is the important thing. The kidnapping and subsequent battle has no doubt resulted in many casualties, but you are alive, and now it's time to head home.

The Wild Hunt keeps a perimeter around the group as they slowly make their way back to Bonfire Square. From there, recovery can begin. Kimiko and the others promise to stay in town long enough to answer your questions and help with any repairs necessary in the aftermath, though they'll need to, er, make some arrangements before they can dive in. In other words, stay tuned for part two!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Fjord isn't in his bed when he gets taken. And that's a matter of sheer luck - he and Soldat had set out early that morning, hoping to take advantage of the early hour to do a little exploration and get back onto their patrols without anyone else worrying about it. It wasn't exactly a safe mission after all; the two had gone off to try and find some Green Eyed Spirits, and see if the Wisdom charm Fjord had bought back at the last Night Market was effective against them. And flee if it were to get too dangerous.

They hadn't counted on getting ambushed and overwhelmed. Fjord had tried fighting - valiantly, it has to be said, but a solid blow to the temple had him dropping his falchion with a loud clatter and sent him straight to unconsciousness.

He only wakes up partway through being dragged through the hospital, groggy and pained, but it's the being thrown into the already crowded room, hearing the cacophenous clatter of metal beside him as Soldat gets thrown in with him, that helps shake off the worst of the heavy sopor. There's shooting pains all through him: especially his ribs, beaten rather than broken but feeling close; and his head where he got struck, leaving his ears ringing gently, and when he tries to push himself upright he barely gets higher than one knee before dizziness slaps him and the ringing turns to a high-pitched shriek inside his head, and he collapses with his head clenched in both hands.

He doesn't stay down for long - he can't, not with what they made him see, not knowing what's coming after this. He's done the kidnapping and being tortured once before, and the lack of manacles this time is no more reassuring.

"We need to get out of here." His voice is a deep growl, almost animalistic, as he tries again to push himself to his feet. "Now."

It's a sentiment he mostly shares. Rosinante gives a nod at that growled insistence, but he doesn't move immediately. His eyes dart side to side as he tries to watch for spirits coming and going, then snaps his fingers when they don't seem to be paying immediate attention. The air around him and Fjord and a few others shimmers faintly, almost imperceptibly - hard to see if one doesn't know what to look for.

He sits himself a little more upright against the wall and hunches his shoulders forward, using his scarf to help hide his mouth from view as he turns to look at Fjord. Anyone outside the bubble won't hear them, but should they notice people talking without sound they might get curious.

"If we go immediately, they'll be on us in an instant. Need to wait until there's an actual chance. And the more of us that go at once, the better. Can't stop us all."

Unfortunately, some will be left behind. He doesn't like that much, but the rest of them need to get help from the others in town. They can come back for anyone else once their forces are prepared and in greater numbers.

Fjord, abruptly, freezes when the sounds of the rest of the space around them suddenly go silent, and there's an edge of panic to the way he looks around as if for some source. It takes a moment for his eyes to settle on Rosinante, in realisaiton, but it's not until Rosinante speaks, and Fjord can hear him, that some part of him relaxes. Not much, but a little.

"We..." oh good he can hear himself, too, and a large part of his tension vanishes. Not all of it, given the circumstances, but enough. He makes a vague gesture with his hands, and his voice sounds quietly near Rosinante, despite his lips not moving - a useful cantrip, Minor Illusion. "We need to act soon, though. Before everyone gets hurt." There's a dark look on his face, as he gestures again. "I've done this before. The longer we wait, the more people are going to break."

"Agreed." Can't wait forever, they have to try while they still have their strength, both mental and physical.

"And passing word too far is a risk since they'll find out. Not everyone is quiet."

But they can try. He turns to look at the others in the room, trying to catch the eyes of as many as he can and occasionally flicking his glance toward the door he suspects they came in from. If a few catch on and run when they do, the others might also pick up on it soon enough. If they fail - well. It's a risk they have to take.

The urge to pull his sword out already is strong, so he folds his arms. It helps disguise the somatic component of the spell when he hides his hand under his elbow, too.

"I might be able to teleport outside, catch them off-guard. It's as good a distraction as any." But he grimaces and scowls, lifting a hand to his temple as his ears ring again. There's a large, ugly bruise flowering across his left cheekbone and temple, not that he's aware of it.

Good, that's a good start. A real possibility. "You could do more than just that. One of your illusions. Or your demons."

Though the latter he suspects would have to be positioned carefully to avoid it attacking the injured people in the room, all easy targets for a hungry beast. But an image of one might buy them a few extra seconds, especially if it obscures the green-eyes vision - and he's not sure it would. They might see, or smell, lifeforce. A vision of a demon might not even faze them.

"I could gather up as many of these people as I can and run. The exit is a bottleneck, though, and we don't know what's outside."

When Fjord gets taken away, it's not without a fight. That motherfucker Lorenzo couldn't take that from him, even as it takes two Green Eyes to drag him out of the room: he kicks, he screams, he swears at the top of his lungs, he appears his sword into his hand and struggles against every step, until he gets smacked in the head again and can't resist them strapping him to the table. He starts coming to, struggling against his bonds, even as the fucker in charge approaches him, eyes bright, and the world goes dark.

Dark. Dark, and freezing cold, and wet, and he's holding his breath. The fucking dreams from Uk'otoa, he's had too many not to recognise the trappings now: the bottom of the ocean. He opens his mouth, sucking in water as he expects the dream to go--

And chokes.

He can't breathe he can't breathe, his hands fly to his throat and he coughs out the water, but more rushes in when he gasps, he can feel the icy sting of salt stabbing his lungs with every spasm of his diaphragm, turning to a nauseating heat that makes him want to vomit. He kicks out, wildly, but he knows he's at the bottom of the ocean, there's no one here, nowhere to go, no escape he can't breathe he can't wake up.

Suddenly light floods the world - not yellow, but a sick, harrowing green, and Fjord spins to look as the giant eye of Uk'otoa stares down at him impassively, the brilliant beam seeming to spin and crackle as Fjord's vision starts twisting with delirium.

Punish...

He feels the water shift, and a current wraps around him, pulling him down, faster than he can swim again, his lungs still full why can't he breathe, and in an instant the taste of rot enters his mouth, his lungs, something pulls tight around his waist and he slams into a wall and something pops in his shoulder, sending excrutiating pain jolting through him and he screams, but not even bubbles come out now.

He tries to teleport, pulling on the magic in his core while his lungs burn and his shoulder screams and the corners of his vision turn black and it doesn't work, he just feels the line go slack, and he reaches for it desperately, watching it slip away from his grasp as he's thrown against the slick walls of Beacon's river, feeling ribs break, an ankle shatter, his neck crack--

He jolts viciously, but his limbs are restrained against the table as he coughs and heaves, spitting up saltwater and gasping for breath that doesn't come fast or easily enough, pale and sick under the intense, watching eyes of his captors.

He barely gets his breath back - hasn't fully, in fact, he still feels wet inside his lungs, but he manages to get a strangled, gurgling, "No..." out, before the hand reaches out again...

When Fjord gets dragged back to the room everyone's held in, he's not breathing. It's not immediately obvious, what with everyone nursing their own wounds, physical and otherwise, but people might notice just how still he is, how he's still dripping with water; but when the guard carting him by one arm lets go to grab someone else, Fjord falls to the ground with a very final splash and is just. Limp.

Sometimes the spirit throws him against the wall with a sick crack, instead, and when he hits the ground that is when Fjord coughs, gasps and heaves, and there's a wet, hollow splatter under all the retching, and the smell of... saltwater? The rancid odours of rot and blood smother it all too quickly, but for just a moment there's a brief, fresh whiff of salt.

It takes him a while, every time, to recover and get his breathing back on track. (It takes longer every time.) But there's a persistent cough in him now, that doesn't quite shake no matter how close he gets to making himself vomit.

But he forces himself to his feet, nonetheless. It hurts, his body aches in ways he didn't know it could, but he refuses to let them take the ocean from him. So he's making a habit, now, of summoning his sword into his hands - letting the spray of saltwater from his palm land where it may, even if that means someone nearby gets splashed - stabbing it into the ground, or swinging it against the door in a vicious burst of energy, and dismissing it again. Every few minutes, whenever the panic starts to take him. It's something real.

The third time he's brought back-- after Soldat's own third round, too-- Soldat has figured out what to do. They come over, pick him up, and hold him so that he's approximately on his knees and bent over a little, and give his back a good smack. That generally gets breathing going again. And Soldat is one of the ones in here strong enough to heave Fjord into a sitting position anyway. Guy is heavy, and most of them aren't in great shape. Soldat isn't, either, really, but they do have a machine arm that doesn't actually get tired. Good enough.

The kickstart is deeply appreciated.

As soon as the impact rattles him Fjord goes tense, and saltwater explodes out of his mouth and nose as he hacks and coughs and falls forward. One arm braces his forehead from just smashing into the floor, but the other is tight around his ribs as his chest heaves with painful, almost melodramatic force as his body tries its hardest to evict the water.

It takes a minute or two for the force to finally ease up, and Fjord gives a very definitive snort to clear the shit that's built up in his nose, wiping it across his face with the back of his hand, then using the front to scrub the salt and bile off, idly wiping that on his pants as he finally takes an actual - painful, still, but clear breath.

His voice is a hoarse whisper. "Thanks, Soldat..."

Fjord. C'mon now. What kind of friend do you think you got, here. Soldat keeps a hold of the back of his neck with the flesh hand despite the blood still tacky on it, braces him in his half-bent position with the metal one, so there's no falling on one's face, nearly or otherwise. "Don't gotta talk until your throat feels better. Give it a minute."

Vomiting sucks. They know.

He's too tired to care about how sticky Soldat is; with how wet he is, they mostly cancel each other out.

It feels like his lungs are never going to be empty, and he coughs again when he tries to take too deep a breath, that turns into another heave and a slick trail of bile drips from his mouth. He spits at the ground and wipes his face again. "Fuck those bastards."

"Yeah, I know," Soldat says, though there's something sad in their tone as they say it. They know what they got fed. They know how Owl Friend had spoken of the green eyes. It's not the fault of the regular spirits if their minds are being controlled, if they have no choice. It's not their fault.

It's the fucking green-eyes.

They're not going to make a fuss about specifics right now, though.

"There anything I need to bandage or set?" they ask instead.

Edited (forgot to pick the icon) 2020-03-22 06:53 (UTC)

He's trying to keep his breathing shallow, now, and slow, so he doesn't hurt himself trying to actually catch his breath. So he shakes his head instead.

"Nothin' yet. Ribs're just... bruised, I think." His arms are shaking as he pushes himself into a proper kneel - and he grimaces sharply, one hand slamming into his temple with a sharp groan as the ringing in his ears hits again like an alarm.

"And your head hurts. Try not to move it." Soldat moves the flesh hand to gently inspect the top of Fjord's skull for any bumps, scratches, or cuts. "Your ribs aren't bruised, Fjord. They're still broken." Not irritated at Fjord. This absolutely is not his fault. But the universe needs to give Fjord's ribs a fucking break.

There's a sticky-ish patch of matted hair and blood near the back of his head, that gets a faint hiss out of Fjord when Soldat brushes over it; and an ugly splotch of bruises colouring one temple and cheekbone. The colours suggest it's only hours old, probably from before they got put in here.

"Yeah, but... how much point is there...'n tryin' t'set them?" he wheezes softly. "'f they're just gonna keep doing this?"

Fjord | Kidnapped | OTA

Kidnapped

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Hallucinations (CW: Drowning, water torture, implied death)

Downtime

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Rescue

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