logsinthenight | EVENT CONCLUSION: BEYOND THE SEA

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EVENT CONCLUSION: BEYOND THE SEA

characters: everyone!!
location: in the helix station under the lake, and back to the surface! (hopefully)
date/time: july 19th ish
content: After successfully exploring the Helix Station, characters have all they need to deal with the world eater stuck in the portal down below. How are they going to do it? Click and find out!
warnings: injury, body horror, monster horror, blood, maiming, you know, the usual

game plan.

Based on the votes, the consensus is quite clear: it's time to see if a creature that can destroy worlds can be killed. Characters are well armed from the finds in the test lab. Having recovered Weaver from the R&D wing, they have her assistance in attempting to use the MK VIII to assist with this task. The Key Extraction group found strong potions that might help to pacify the creature long enough to fight it. They have all they can hope to in this impossible fight — the idea is simple. Open the doors, distract the monster with brute force and attempt to pacify it with the narcotics they've recovered, while Weaver does what she can to get the drone restarted and hopefully in place for a killing blow.

If things go badly, though, the team has all agreed on a Plan B. If the tides start to turn, then the group will finish what Alastair started and shunt that bad boy back into space. It's not possible for them to change the trajectory, the World Eater will end up back where it started. However, it won't be in their lake anymore, so that's still some sort of a win. As Weaver is controlling the drone remotely, she will be the one in the control room, and will run the reversal routine if the attack begins to fail. Cao Pi is in charge of the radio to call if things start going south. Hopefully someone taught him how to use it!

boss battle.

Javert, Fitz, and Law (armed with a key Weaver provided him), with a coordinated use of the lockdown keys, manage to open the Portal Bay. Even with power restored, it is practically pitch dark in the room. It's as if the World Eater trapped in the portal manages to suck in and contain any light that dares get too close. They can hardly see the monster before they brave entering the room, though as they walk deeper into the darkness the group can see its shadowy form lodged in the portal. It's trapped around the torso, with only a small part of it visible to the group. Impossibly huge, and perhaps somewhat reminiscent of something that might have resembled a green eyed spirit, once, though it has started growing new extremities and limbs, as well as a few more sets of eyes. It rouses as they enter, and just looking at the World Eater manages to send an unspeakable wave of unease, anxiety, and hopelessness through the group.

Gregor, Stone and Jill throw the fragile bottles of sedative. They crack and settle on the skin and wide empty eyes of the monster. While it's clear it did not incapacitate the World Eater, the mental effects lessen and its movements seem to slow.

With that, it's a free for all, all members of the party armed to the teeth and determined to fight for all they have. The weapons recovered by Cao Pi, Link, and Reiju prove especially useful, though as they cut and slash, the World Eater seems to recover new limbs, new tendrils, seem to generate at random. Like a hydra, every piece they cut down seems to restore itself. Braving closer to its torso leaves the creature leaking toxic black blood over the floor. Touching it proves it is bitterly caustic, easily burning through rubber and clothing and flesh alike. It's a bitter, ugly battle, and not without damage to the fighters themselves.

The fight seems doomed to fail, even with the World Eater slowed and mostly immobilized. It's more than just slashes, heavy hits that can send bodies flying across the room. A flash of attention can leave an attacker immobilized, dark swirling terror clawing through them strong enough that they might try to hurt themselves or their company instead of the monster itself. Worse yet, any time the World Eater seems to lull, it seems to draw the living energy from any lantern nearby, rousing itself and dampening the fighter that might have been feverishly fighting a second before.

However, with the distraction provided, Weaver successfully reactivates the MK VIII. It sounds much like a giant sized bumble bee, until it rockets through the air toward the monster. The beast manages to swat the drone away, once, and for a moment all hope seems to be lost. Until the device lurches in the air and zooms right back to its task, landing on the monstrosity and scuttling deftly over the surface of the World Eater in attempt to find a weak spot. The battle swells, attempting to keep the World Eater from clawing the drone from its body before the drone has a chance to work properly.

It feels as if it takes hours for the drone to locate a weak point, though the reality is it doesn't take much longer than a handful of minutes. The sickening churn of flesh, bone and blood resonates in the room as the drone buries successfully inside the monster. Those lingering for the fight aren't spared, as even as the device whirls inside of it, the World Eater keeps up the fight, reaching for and lashing out at whoever remains close enough. There's no running for cover, as the fight rages until the very last.

There's no warning for when it happens. The World Eater cries out, a terrifying bellow that echoes throughout the station. With the cry comes a flash of bold light, brighter than any of them have seen since arriving in Beacon. The light builds, pushes outward, and the explosion deafens suddenly and completely. The room is bathed in light and anyone in the Portal Room is thrown to the sidelines, bouncing like ragdolls off the sturdy metal walls. The implosion paired with the light existing inside the creature floods through the room, likely to leave characters blinded and deafened for a few seconds after.

However, as they come to their senses, they find the World Eater felled, lying in multiple bloody burnt pieces. Troubling, some of them do seem to keep twitching and moving. Still, it seems to be over. The fight was not without consequences, and certainly not won easily, but it was won all the same.

return to the surface.

With the beast felled, and the party much worse for the wear, the group collects back in the submarines which have thankfully had a chance to charge this time around. The ride isn't exactly fun, but there's no alarm messages or rides in pitch darkness, at least. Even if there's still a good chance that characters might suffer decompression sickness, dizziness, queasiness, and headaches as they head back topside.

It's a battered and bruised group that makes it back to the docks. Plenty will need medical attention, and there might even be some with broken lanterns that will need to be taken to the lab and repaired immediately. Those that died in the fight will awaken in 3 days, however, there might be some consequences when they revive.

Those that are in better shape have a lot to share. What they've seen, what happened, and what should happen next. They've had a rough go of it, characters on the surface have their own oddities to share, too. There's a new guy in town, after all... And boy does he have some ideas and opinions.

ooc notes.

For refreshers on the first part of this event, please see the first event post! The results of this event are based on the voting found here. If your character was involved in the portal room fight, we have provided a comment for injury rolls here. If your character died in the fight, please head over to the Death Page to report it. Thanks for taking part in the first major event of our Next Night! It was quite a ride but we hope you had as much fun as we did!

Feel free to use this post for action tags set during the fight, as well as meeting up and sharing information with the others topside. As of this event, new NPC Weaver will be ashore with her submarine to offer her aide to the residents of Beacon after their help with the Helix Station. Keep an eye out for more from her soon! She will be staying at the docks in a submarine. If anyone has a cot a bunny can borrow, hit a girl up...

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"Nothing that hasn't been looked at already." He'll just leave out the details on how he got most of these injuries because honestly, a lot of them were pretty dumb. Weird crystalline blades falling on him out of someone's locker? Will stabbing him in a hallucination-induced panic? Not much of a concern of his right now.

But when Kuai questions the instructions he was given, Rosinante practically bristles like some monstrously-large cat. "Yes, I want to leave him here. He can't be moved right now," he insists, and taps the note stuck to the seat beside him that reinforces his statement. "He has to stay still so the stitching doesn't reopen. And I'm staying here with him." As much as he can, anyway.

"Law!" he shouts, jerked right into that state of panic. He can easily finish Law's sentence in his mind - both of them, but more concerningly, the first. If he's out, he might not wake up again. Might not make it.

The antiseptic trick won't work a second time since Law already dumped the whole thing onto himself. Shaking him by the shoulders seems like a horrible idea that will just make all of this worse. So he settles instead for pushing his hat aside so he can grip a fistful of black hair and pull his head back up straight, hard enough so it probably stings. He can't bring himself to slap him but hell, that'll be the next thing if this doesn't work. And if that fails, maybe he can finish the stitching himself - he's sure had to do that for his own injuries before, though his hands are far clumsier than Law's.

"Law, wake up. You have to stay with me," he pleads.

I. The Church - Three Days After the Return

Stone takes a long few minutes to pick himself up off the pew he found himself in. He's not sure whether it's the new people handling the lantern repair, or the World Eater being involved, or some consequence of dying, but shit, he is tired. And everything still smells like death. Ugh.

He does finally push to his feet, because the church is not where he'd like to nap if he's going to nap, and there's probably some people worried about him. His lantern in hand, he wanders sluggishly out, heading for Bonfire Square and the Invincible. Maybe someone will have food out he can graze on, get this taste off his tongue. Yuck.

II. A New Friend

Really, Stone isn't one for looking in mirrors. Why bother? He can't see well enough to get much out of it, he doesn't actually bathe in the bathroom of his inn suite more often than not, and he doesn't really give a shit what he looks like. So he doesn't immediately notice the little... oddity... that has cropped up since his death. Maybe it's someone in the Invincible who notices it first, reflected in a window. Maybe it's in the lake when he goes for his winged-form swim-slash-bath.

But if nobody else points it out, he finally wanders into the Invincible again, and demands of anyone else there, "Okay, what is wrong with my reflection? It looks funny, but I can't shitting see it well enough to tell what it is."

III. Forging Ahead

There aren't a ton of people left Stone really cares about, after Masaomi vanished. Rosinante, Ashford, Mary. That's no way for a social species like a Raksura to live. So dead mirror haunting or not, he's going to do something about it. Prowling around Beacon and the downtown area, he's looking for people he doesn't know, and he's going to aggressively get to know them.

Well, "aggressively". It mostly amounts to, "So remind me what your name is, again?" and "Are you going to eat all that?" and "Hey, just ignore the dead guy in the mirror, I don't actually think he's there."

It also amounts to a big, ghostly, winged dragon-like creature swooping around Beacon proper and jumping from rooftop to rooftop in downtown, or splashing around in the lake sending splashes at anyone on the shore with his tail. In case anyone wants to meet a giant-ass dragon, instead of a weirdly pale old man.

"No more complaining about my swimming." Or failure-to-swim, that is.

Ashford's voice comes from the apse. He'd been coming to check on Stone day to day after the news of his death and on this occasion wandered farther up to peer curiously at the stained glass. The place was strangely reminiscent of the Behemoth, in no small part due to the fact that his ship had been a church they had...er....appropriated and transformed into a warship.

At the sound of the shuffling from Stone's pew, Ashford had turned his attention back to the point at hand, and now stands like some wiry, bedheaded inquisitor just up the main aisle.

( he probably shouldn't have expected anything less. last time he'd died, the first time here, they hadn't had a chance to miss or worry about each other. they'd woken up about the same time, like it'd never even happened. well, except for the fact Elektra couldn't stop picturing him being torn to pieces by the parade. the fact that she's there, steady, and he's just waking... it means his is the only light that went out.

truthfully, he's glad — he knows Elektra won't see it that way.

she presses kisses and touches all over him, and even as his lantern flickers and his head spins a little, Matt leans into the touch. he knows just as well as she that there were was only a slim chance they'd get to do this again. it's an unbelievable reassurance to have her flood all his senses, that even if his lantern went out, he's not gone. neither is she. there's a heavy hang in his heart as the familiar touch of the rough, bark-covered palms of the tree spirit wrap around his hand in two tiny knots. he tries to manage a smile for the tree spirit, but there's something heavy and sad about it. )

I don't remember what happened, ( he confesses uselessly. he was fighting, and then... then nothing. he is forced to release Elektra's hand to let it explore over the bandage on her wrist. ) What happened? Did the World Eater do this? ( it smells wrong, like blood and marrow. it's not a simple sprain, and that's not the worst of the bandages, either. Matt might have died, but still finds himself more worried about Elektra. )

[ you died is on the tip of her tongue, but he already knows that. they’ve already been through this and she was hoping, against all odds, that this would be something neither of them had to experience again. she would have taken his death blow herself again if she’d known what was happening, except you couldn’t even consider what had happened to be a death blow, could you? his life had been snuffed out, without him having the chance to fight back.

it still makes her angry, even angrier than seeing his death over and over again, knowing she’d been in part responsible for it. it doesn’t do her any good and the thing responsible is dead. she still feels it, but she can’t focus on that right now. what he needs from her isn’t anger.

he lets go of her good hand (funny how the hand that had been chemically burned is now her good hand) and feels out the splint and bandage on her wrist. his touch is gentle, but the barrier isn’t what it should be and it hurts. she grits her teeth against the pain and cups the side of his face. ]

Yes. And then we killed it. [ not exactly in that order, but. ] It’s been set, it’s fine. What about you? [ her voice is still strained with grief, tears stinging the backs of her eyes. ] Are you okay? Does anything feel wrong?

[ she’s a little too focused on him to notice the state of his lantern, but it seems to have caught the tree spirit’s attention. he whimpers again, trying to get their attention. ]

[ he makes no assumptions, but he did see her stick close to the now-dead man upon arrival, them going together with the same group, and fighting close to one another.

he doesn't offer condolences; if he can be revived, there will be no use for them. if not, offering them won't bring him back.

at her question, he actually huffs something that might be classified as a laugh. ]

Yeah — me.

[ cataloged all his injuries, cleaned the edges of the wound, stopped the bleeding for long enough to stitch himself up.

as soon as her wrist is done, he starts gathering supplies to stitching up her arm. ] Keep your hand above your heart as much as you can. It'll reduce the swelling. And keep the splint on for a few days, preferably a week. After that if it's not better, you might need a cast. [ normal people certainly would... but he's not sure if she's normal. ]

The sharp pain is enough to make him wince, eyes widening as he tries to force himself back to awareness.

"Cora-san —"

As he looks at the floor, it seems to flicker — is he sitting on a floor, or is it the ground? If he lifts his gaze, will he see hangar walls or something else?

Best not look up, he decides, attention re-shifting to his wound.

"Thanks," he says, eyes briefly meeting Cora's. He wants to reassure him — I'm not going to die — but right now... that's not a promise he can be sure to keep.

But the best way to try is to keep at treating himself. And so he goes back to stitching, revealing more and more of the wound, little by little. But as his attention narrows, it seems harder and harder to stay awake.

So,

"... Can you talk? About anything." Just — something for him to focus on, to drown out the buzzing of the flies, everything that tries to drag him into unconsciousness.

"Yeah. Sure, of course." Anything to keep Law focused on what's actually going on around him, and to help keep him from passing out again. This isn't exactly the sort of situation that's great for a casual chat, though, and it takes him a second.

"I'm glad I got you out of there fast. That thing - if that's a weak one, I never want to be that close to one that's at full strength. If Weaver's plan with her robot works, we'll have to do whatever we can to help her build more. Bigger ones, or ones that go farther or faster. Wish I knew anything about robots."

He's not really thinking about the words ahead of time, and realizes it comes out as some pretty dumb babble. Obvious stuff. But whatever Law needs, he'll just keep at it.

[ the possibility that matthew might not be able to be revived isn’t a thing she’s even allowing herself to consider. she appreciates that he doesn’t offer any words of comfort or condolence, she doesn’t want or need them and he’s helping her with one of the things she does need, at what looks like great cost to his own well being. she studies him as he starts to gather supplies to work on her arm, keeping it elevated per his instructions. ]

You wouldn’t happen to be able to fix me up with one of those if it’s not? [ because she is a normal human, just a very well-trained one. she nods to his torso. ] How confident are you that those will hold?

[ he’s treating her non-dominant arm. if he needs her to return the favor by checking or tightening the stitches, she could probably do it. ]

[ when is the last time he's fixed a broken bone with a cast, for anyone...? the minks certainly had some, but it was dr. tony who did those, not him. most people he associated with, his allies, and himself... they all simply heal.

he's never thought of it as particularly strange, given how most pirates who have made it to the new world have enhanced physical skills, healing as part of them... but maybe it is.

luckily, he still has a little antiseptic left, a smaller bottle than the one he emptied on his own wound, and he uses that and a clean cloth to wipe her wounds before starting with the sutures. ]

If you want. I don't tend to leave my patients untreated. [ if she needs a cast, he'll get it for her and set it, too. ]

... why are you asking? Afraid I'll bleed out before finishing stitching you up?

As good as you're proving to be, I'm not sure I trust a splint to hold me in place for over a week. [ especially since she's about as good at staying in one place and resting when something needs to be done as he evidently is. the labs are pretty far out into the woods and that's where she's going to be headed as soon as they get out of those godforsaken submarines. ]

Are you? [ it's asked with a slightly raised eyebrow, though she winces as the antiseptic soaks into her skin. ] I'm not sure how quickly I can fix them if they need restitching, but I can help with that if they do.

Honestly... Cora could talk about anything at all, and Law wouldn't really mind either way. What is important is his voice — as long as he can hear him, it doesn't matter what his mind tries to convince him of. He knows where he is, and what he's doing... and remembers why it's important he stay conscious.

"At least we know what it can do," he mutters, wincing as he needs to bend lower to reach the rest of his wound.

He keeps at it until there's only a few stitches to go... and then, suddenly, all the buzzing inside his head is gone. It's like something suddenly rights itself in his head.

Attention shifting away from his task at hand, Law looks up, eyes wide. Did they...?

[ despite never actually having exchanged a word with matt, there are things law knows: that his name is matthew, that he was among those not taken to the hospital by the spirits, that he and the woman he stitched up after the fight are close... and that he just spent three days being dead.

and though he's not someone inclined to socialize, there are two things he wants to ask matt: about the hospital... and about elektra's wrist, since he's not seen the woman herself to see how her recovery is going.

so it ends up being rather convenient that he spots him at the invincible as he's returning to the room he shares with rosinante and mary. ]

You're Matt.

[ it's a question masked as a statement. ]

If you can get it in place yourself, I can give it to you. If not, you'll have to wait for a few days. [ because he has every intention of just passing out and letting his wound heal on its own as he rests; it's the most effective way to heal for those with his kind of healing.

then, wryly, ]

We'll see. [ it's quick, but he does glance over to where rosinante is — frankly, he can't let the wound open. he's determined to treat this woman, along with the one who hit her head, but if there's even the slightest indication that his injuries can't take it... well. he's pretty sure even if he tried to keep doing this, rosinante would knock him out just to keep him alive. ]

... there's no need for that. When they need re-stitching, I'll already be fine. And if not... [ well. rosinante will do it, then. ]

I can if you think I can set it over the splint. [ he's already made it clear that he knows what he's doing, so she'll defer to his judgment.

he looks to rosinate an her gaze travels in that direction as well - she hasn't really kept up with who's been hurt and how badly since they won the battle and it was clear that matthew hadn't survived it. he doesn't look as badly off as his companion or even as her, but the world eaters have mental effects as well as physical. ]

Right. [ she's already made the offer and it's still on the table if he changes his mind, for as long as they remain down here anyway. ] How is he doing?

His eyes track to where Law is looking, toward the door they had ducked out of. There's a lot of yelling, but there has been plenty of that the whole time. He doesn't want to get his hopes up.

So he turns his attention back to Law. "You doing all right? Looks like you're almost done. Just a few more, then I can take you somewhere to rest up. We'll get out of here together."

That doesn't really put him at ease, considering that's the same as what Kuai would claim if his entrails were being held in with bandages. But he'll let it slide for now because the one who's seemingly unconscious is the bigger priority.

Kuai raises an eyebrow because that's.. odd. Wouldn't it be safer to move him to land where there isn't the potential of giant sea monsters eating the submarine, nor the rocking of the tide. "Until the stitching ... You mean for several days?"

Well now this is even stranger. "How long has he been like this?"

Yeah he should probably actually explain to Kuai what happened, huh.

"A few hours now. We found the world eater the Night Market was talking about. They had it trapped in their portal, and we were trying to keep it busy so Weaver, the survivor of their group, could drop a bomb inside it with a small robot. She called it a drone. The world eater had all these legs and claws and tentacle things and one of them slashed him right open, so I dragged him out, he stitched himself up and then passed out."

Rosinante will, of course, leave out the hallucination part. He heard enough to realize what Law was seeing and it's far too personal to go into, even with Kuai, who he trusts. Law doesn't know him well and it's his story to tell.

No, it needs to be taken off first.

[ he sighs. ] Maybe it's better I do it. I'll come and see you in a few days. [ the splint will allow for the swelling, for the first few days, and when it goes down he should be up again. the timing works out, luckily.

he realizes she's seen his glance — but it's just as well. the people here seem to like cora-san, so he takes her question to be one of concern. ]

He wasn't hurt in the fight, [ and that's something at least. but law frowns; he knows he certainly got hit with more than simply the physical wound. if it's the same for rosinante... ]

But Cora-san is stubborn. [ he supposes that even if he has some mental effects from it, he wouldn't have said anything, not when law was doing his best impression of bleeding out. he'll have to hound him later, once he's better, to figure out if something's wrong. ]

He can't really afford the distraction, either. If they have won... well, that will become apparent sooner rather than later. And if not, then he needs to be in a shape to do something.

"Yes, it's almost done." But then, "We need to see how the fight has gone. If we win, there will undoubtedly be those who need treatment. And if we don't..."

Then resting up is really not in the books at all.

It's a couple days after everything that Law, his entire torso still wrapped in bandages but actually awake again, suddenly appears in the place of a chair in the middle of the Invincible — the chair is temporarily back in his room... it's okay, though, he'll switch it back when he leaves.

(He's still not supposed to be moving all that much, so concessions have to be made. Lucky for him, his power is handy for things like this.)

He nods his head at Soldat.

"You got any coffee ready?" Because what is eating something actually nutritious after being in a healing coma for two days... right? Caffeine is far more important.

Sudden appearances mean violent twitches and a knife in one hand, until Law speaks and Soldat registers it and how mundane the request is. Misty doesn't really use her magic much, so they're really not used to the whole teleport-around thing. Even then it takes them a minute of staring through the kitchen door at him to shake themselves into action, and into putting the knife away. "I. Yeah. Hang on. There's some left from breakfast." They had a cup, themselves, but there's enough left for another cup.

Law is going to get nutritious food too, of course. "Should you be up and about?" they ask over their shoulder, since the last they'd heard, Law had put a note on himself to not move him under any circumstances.

Stone blinks owlishly at him, pausing in pushing up to his feet. It takes him a minute to get his usual grumpy response out: "Your almost drowning was a stupid, preventable accident that we're going to make sure doesn't happen in the future. By making sure you know how to swim. This time, I figured it was more likely than not that I was going to die down there, and I did it on purpose. Big difference."

Though he's going to stay put for a minute more, it seems. He's definitely feeling his death this time, damn.

Ashford laughs in low, quiet bursts of breath as he makes his way in Stone's direction. "Between the two'f'us, I'm the one who has not died yet."

Idiotic potential drowning or not.

He comes to stand next to the pew, "There's no hurry."

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Page 3 of 11

EVENT CONCLUSION: BEYOND THE SEA

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Stone | OTA

I.

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aftermath;

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iii.

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