logsinthenight | EVENT CONCLUSION: BEYOND THE SEA

Entry tags:

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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I. Sitting Out a World-Eater

For once in their life that they can remember, Soldat willingly does not participate in a fight. Between the certainty that they could be shut off by one wrong hallucination, the worry that the people not fighting could be attacked if the remaining spirits on the station could be controlled by the world eater, and a desire to have someone capable of patching up the survivors if anything happened to Law (who is fighting), it just seemed prudent. So during the fight, Soldat patrols from portal chamber door to control room and back again, stomping the occasional mimic spirit and keeping watch for trouble.

Then when there's success, they're flying into the portal chamber to get people out who need to get out, carrying when people need carrying, applying what first aid they can right on the spot or outside as wished, directing Misty to whoever needs actual magic for healing. They even stab one of the twitching tentacles, for good measure. Just in case.

Once everyone is patched and settled back out in the submarine hanger where everyone's been congregating, they bring everyone capable and interested in it dinner, in the form of grilled cheese and tomato soup-- just the soup with some extra veggies mixed in for Law and Rosinante and Weaver, though Weaver can have toast too if she wants it. Somebody's gotta do it. Might as well be them.

II. Going Top-side

The ride up in the submarine is every bit as bad as the ride down, with the added bonus of Soldat having not slept more than an hour or two at a time in the past week and a half and the shakiness of both the world eater fight (which, sure, they didn't participate in directly, but it was still stressful) and the care afterwards.

They step out into the open air unsteadily and sit down immediately on the dock, just out of the path of everyone else exiting the submarine. They feel extremely stupid for being as unsteady as they are, when they're not even hurt. But it doesn't change that they are.

It does make them easy to come question if anyone wants to get info from someone clearly unhurt, at least, while the more injured and affected by the world eater battle get move somewhere more secure. Eventually they'll follow, see what they can do to help, but for maybe half an hour? Sitting. Breathing. Listening. Not being in a pressurized atmosphere for the first time in what feels like forever.

III. Let's Get Busy

Soldat gives themselves a day to just sleep, and cook, and eat. Then it's back to work: checking in with everyone who stayed top-side, resuming patrols, going back over what they missed on the network, and making plans. Soldat can be found back at their usual routine, maybe with a little more time spent at the Invincible where it's easy to find them, and of course making the rounds to people both left behind and brought back up, in case anyone needs anything.

Staying busy is always best.

IV. Birthday Surprise - Closed to Misty

It's hard to celebrate a birthday while stuck in a creepy haunted submarine station, but Soldat didn't forget. After a day or two to of being back on the job, as it were, they actually reorganize their schedule-- this is a big thing-- to spend some time at the B&B while Misty is away at the greenhouse for the "afternoon".

When Misty gets home, she'll find an only slightly-amateur cake sitting on the coffee table, and Soldat sitting somewhat nervously on the couch beside it, waiting for her. "Happy birthday, Misty. It's a little late. I'm sorry."

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.

... ah. Right. He did consider the fact that someone else might be there — he thought it might be Pudding, which wouldn't pose a problem as she was already aware of his abilities.

Well, at least Soldat doesn't try attacking him... not that it'd do much, with Law's Room still maintained. With a sigh, he lets go of it and sits on a bar stool.

"Didn't mean to startle you. But the less I walk, the better."

It's not quite an apology, but something of the sort; an acknowledgement, if nothing else... and an explanation. He's not the type to use shambles when he doesn't need to, but moving around is still not the easiest thing for him, and this at least minimizes it.

"I'm the doctor here, aren't I?" With a raised eyebrow. Obviously he knows best what he can or can't do... even if, strictly speaking, he probably shouldn't be up at all. But that's irrelevant; he'll go crazy if he has to lie down and rest any longer.

Sure, maybe, except some people are very stubborn. Like doctors who insist on setting other people's arms and stitching up other people's wounds while practically cut in half, themselves. After stitching themselves up. Because some people have unrealistic expectations for themsleves, or an overinflated sense of duty, or... something. (Little bit of the pot calling the kettle black. What? You heard me.)

Thankfully, too, the coffee pot is out of view of the main room, so Law can't see Soldat's second violent twitch in as many minutes at the unexpected word when they were already on edge. At least it's quick, and the metal hand is steady when they pour most of what's left into a clean mug. And consider what they can grab for him to eat with it that won't taste terrible with the taste of coffee. ... that isn't bread.

"Do you hate pastry as much as you hate bread?" they call back as they set the pot into the sink to wash out while lunch cooks.

Look, he seemed to be all into exposure therapy, what's a little more of it... Law may or may not have thought that if Soldat hears him being referred to as a doctor, he might start associating the word with something else than just his bad memories.

It's worth a try, at least.

"... not as much," comes the answer, which still means he's not exactly fond of it either. Law sighs. "Soldat-ya. I didn't ask for anything to eat. Just the coffee will do. I've slept enough that forgoing eating won't be a problem."

Eat, drink, sleep — he'd been told he could go without one of those, easily. He'd chosen sleep... but now that he had spent so much time passed out, he figures he can be without food for a while.

It's not a terrible strategy. It's worked with telling them they're a person, to some extent. They don't react quite as violently to the sound of their own former name. They've gotten sort of used to being looked at, by putting themselves in places to be looked at, a lot. This is just one more of many things they need to get used to.

"Healing takes calories. No matter what other people tell you. It's still better to eat if there's food. And I know I'm always starving when I'm injured." Of course, they have enhanced metabolism, and all they energy to fuel it has to come from somewhere.

So they come out with a plate with four strips of bacon on it in one hand, and the coffee in the other. Welcome to Soldat's mother-henning, Law. See why Rosinante gets so easily annoyed with them. "Here. There is bacon left from breakfast." They'd been planning to crumble that up and use it on the side-salad for lunch, but this is fine. They can make more, or use something else. The coffee, coincidentally, has whatever in it Law usually takes, whether it be sugar, cream, both, or neither. Soldat notices these things.

"As if I don't know that," Law mutters, because of course he knows... and he's pretty sure he's hungry, too, but he also, frankly, feels like shit.

Which isn't the best way to feel when you should be eating. Hence why he was going for coffee, wanting something that would at least keep him up for a while.

So when Soldat comes out with a plate with bacon on it, Law gives him the kind of glare that would send all of his enemies and even most of his allies running away at the sight.

"Didn't I tell you I didn't ask for anything to eat? I'm not some kind of charity case, Soldat-ya!"

He does, however, take the coffee (black, like his soul) and down about half a cup at once.

This? This is the kind of grumpy and pissed off Soldat can handle. This is the kind of pissed off Steve used to do when he was sick but not so sick he couldn't claim he was fine. And Crowley used to do whenever someone tried to point out how much he cared. And Javert still does whenever anyone so much as suggests he's a human with needs and feelings. Soldat isn't not comfortable enough with Law to snark back, but they do hold up the plate with bland patience, waiting for Law to accept it or disappear out from under them again.

"What does -ya mean?" they ask, rather than addressing the growls. "Rosinante has never used it. That I've heard."

Soldat | OTA

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IV, appallingly late

you're worth waiting for :3

clutches heart

Misty saying it gave me the idea :B

still soft!!

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