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logsinthenight2020-07-19 02:39 pm
nextnightmods) wrote in logsinthenight2020-07-19 02:39 pm
EVENT CONCLUSION: BEYOND THE SEA
EVENT LOG:
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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| pages | | | rules β’ faq β’ taken β’ mod contact β’ player contact β’ calendar β’ setting β’ exploration β’ item requests β’ full nav | |
Reiju | OTA will match formatting
Until now, Reiju has carefully avoided any revelation of her (former) position in Germa 66, going so far as to dissemble intensely in her tense conversation with Rosinante and Law earlier in this expedition, but that time is now past. There is no way she is taking on this creature without the benefit of her raid suit.
It has only been a few weeks since her arrival in Beacon, but that is longer without donning the raid suit than she has gone since she first received it, and the feeling of enhanced power and invulnerability feels like a fresh revelation. With the enhanced garment-as-weapon, gravity holds her only lightly, and her very breath and touch can wither and kill. She is Poison Pink, beautiful and strong and deadly.
01a. Going into battle
She's a ruddy streak in the dimness as she darts forward, eagerly taking the front lines against the creature and drawing its attention to her. The chance to properly fight feels amazing -- she can rely on her strength, speed, and power instead of being hypnotized into docility.
And -- it is unlike her, but the previous experiences of dealing with this uncanny, unnerving place have left her feeling more connection to the other explorers than she would normally experience. Instead of ignoring her fellows-in-arms to fight directly against the creature, she keeps an eye on them. More than once, she leaps between another combatant and the monster, trusting her armor and ironlike skin to absorb more damage than the unenhanced humans she fights beside. The thing lashes out, slamming her into the wall; she feels her body dent, but her bones do not shatter. The caustic, toxic black blood stings and hisses on her skin, but she is Poison Pink; toxins mean nothing to her, and the burns are only an inconvenience.
(She is carefully not looking toward either of the men from North Blue. Law and Rosinante doubtless recognize her, and she does not want to deal with their inevitable hatred. No one from North Blue can look kindly on a member of the hated Vinsmoke dynasty.)
But, perhaps, her performance on this battlefield can show her to be more than the comic-book villain or the daughter of a would-be conqueror. She throws herself into danger, acts to protect others, and fights with full will and gritted teeth against the monster.
01b. Hypnosis
The battle is long and hard. Even as they manage to beat it back, it lashes out with deadly force. She watches in horror as Stone is torn apart by the world eater.
Despite her battlefield focus and intensive training, despair starts to overcome her -- uncharacteristic. crushing, filling her with a sudden exhaustion not of limb but of mind. Before she can stop her swirling thoughts, she alights on the metal decking and begins to walk -- slow, steady, unhurried -- toward the beast, her blue eyes wide and unseeing.
It is hungry. She feels its hunger. She knows its hunger. And she is so tired. For days she has been here, beneath the killing water, sleepless and nerve-wracked in the spirit-ridden dark. It is hungry, and when she sates it, she will rest.
She has nearly reached its jaws before she shakes herself into awareness -- possibly with some help from another fighter calling out to her, snapping her out of her suicidal walk into the jaws of (re-)death. At the last moment, she flings herself out of the way of its jaws, flicking out a quick shower of poisonous darts as she rolls aside. Her mouth is filled with the taste of fear and coppery blood, although a quick wipe of her hand across her lips comes back clean; the taste is only illusion.
Exhausted and now newly wary, she fights on.
02. After the Battle
The World Eater is dead. They succeeded. Reiju is deeply weary in both mind and body as she seals away her raid suit, returning herself to the stained and rumpled clothing she wore before the battle.
02a. Preparing to leave
She has choices in how she can handle the revelation of her alternate identity -- to most of the people here, it will mean nothing, and she decides that the easiest way to deal with it is to throw herself into helping. That way, anyone who wants to talk to her can talk about how they're treating and moving the wounded, about how to divvy up the survivors between the submarines -- other topics that are not the dramatic transformation sequence of the raid suit. The last thing she wants is to be asked about it. So instead, she bandages and lifts and carries those who need it, saying little and only when directly spoken to. When she does speak up, it is only to talk about practicalities. She may say to someone visibly injured, "Can you move on your own? If not, I can help you into the submarine."
02b. The return
The prospect of getting back to dry land eases the first portion of the return journey. Reiju slumps in a seat, head tilted back, and attempts to doze -- but is unable, as the ascent of the submarines and accompanying decompression leaves her aching and queasy.
Instead, she looks to distract herself with conversation, if anyone appears willing to chat.
03. Wildcard
(( I'm open for just about anything! If you wanna plot stuff, I'm always happy to chat @
02b-ish
"Hey."
It's sort of a growl, though he's less angry than she might imagine him to be. Mostly, he's startled. His ties to North Blue are more tenuous than he lets on, and so for him, Germa is an occasional disturbance in Marine activities in the North Blue and not some long-standing enemy. He knows loosely of their history, and is honestly more familiar with the fictional accounts in the comics Law used to read.
(Still reads? Perhaps. But he can't ask right now, with the man passed out beside him.)
"You're Germa," he says before she can run off, and this time it does sound a little like an accusation.
no subject
So when he speaks to her, she sighs and doesn't bother to prevaricate.
"I was." Does the distinction matter? To her, a great deal. To him? She's not so sure.
no subject
She might have abandoned them. Stolen the raid suit (and what a prize, if so). That might even have lead to her death, possibly, as he can't imagine the Germa king would take kindly to such a betrayal. Especially as she's one of their own - he can see it surely, now. The curled eyebrow could have been style, could have been coincidence, but no, she's one of their actual family, isn't she? So the past tense might only be because she died.
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"I won't hold the past against you if you use this as an opportunity to start fresh," he says, which is both true and fair in his opinion. "You've made a good start here already. Treat these people with kindness and help protect them, and I'll look past that family of yours."
Said firmly, almost as a sort of warning - as if he was more personally bothered by them than he is, but again, he needs her to believe he's truly from that sea.
no subject
And... well, as much as it rankles to have her fresh start tainted, she can't say it isn't fair. Germa has been responsible for terrible things. She has been responsible.
"That is my entire intent," she says instead, accepting the condition he places. "I would hope that I can be judged by my actions instead of by my family."
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"You won't be the first to have asked that. We've had all sorts here, saints and criminals and everything in between," he says. "We all have room for some sympathy."
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And that's entirely honest. If they start going after each other, they won't be able to succeed against the World Eaters. No reason to throw away what little chance they have.
02a
Now, in between stitching and bandaging and carrying themselves, Soldat pushes bowls of the last of the soup at those capable of eating, before they get everything together to head topside again. Reiju is one of those. "Sit. Breathe. You have been moving since you came out of there." And going in there had to have been exhausting. "You aren't hurt?"
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"I'm not hurt," she says, accepting the soup with a grateful nod and a thin, tired smile. Not hurt much, anyway -- superficial burns and some dents in her hard body that she has yet to take care of. Nothing major. "Not like some--" A gesture. "I'm fine."
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"You're right." The words come slowly. "Thank you."
omg I am SO SORRY feel free to ignore if you want
right back atcha, where tf did September go
who knows, time is fake right now
no subject
"I know what it feels like, to have your will taken away," she says of that part of the fight. "This wasn't that. It bent my will to serve it, so that I wanted to do what it wanted. And I don't think I was the only one impacted like that."
She continues, detailing the rest -- including how the device burrowed into the World Eater and killed it. A grisly death, but a workable one.
(no subject)
the wildest of cards
Slowing his steps, Law looks over to where he can now see a faint outline of a person, even if his lantern's light doesn't quite carry to see her clearly.
"I suppose that eyebrow should have left no doubts for your identity, Vinsmoke Reiju... no, Poison Pink."
He doesn't sound exactly friendly... but he doesn't sound like he's about to fight her, either. That's something.
no subject
It is entirely within her power to simply walk away from this. Being from the same world means nothing here -- Trafalgar cannot control or compel her. But --
But she is Vinsmoke, and as she told Sanji not long ago (at least by her own internal sense of time), she does not intend to run away from the consequences of carrying that name.
"I suppose that's so," she says instead, lightly. "Although if you wouldn't mind, just 'Reiju' would be preferable." What will he make of that?
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Then —
"... Reiju-ya."
It is strangely reminiscent of his first meeting with Pudding, here, this whole thing; only, Pudding's denial of her own last name had been far louder, her mood going from explosive to excited in the matter of minutes — nothing like Reiju's cool, collected behavior.
But what lies beneath is the same: being rid of your name.
For a moment, he thinks of Cora-san, of the name that still reads there, on the tablet.
"So the Vinsmoke family now has not one, but two defectors?"
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But if Law doesn't know about the circumstances of Sanji's leaving, she has no need to enlighten him. "You could put it that way," she says instead, simply. "There's certainly no going back for me, is there?"
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Said with his eyebrow raised — she's trying very hard to avoid saying anything definitive, isn't she? And he has little patience for that.
"I don't really care if you defected, or if you didn't. As you say, none of that matters here. But if you start causing trouble, if you do anything to Cora-san... or Pudding-ya, I won't hesitate to make sure there's not enough of you or your lantern left to bring you back."
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"Based on past events, I have far more to be worried about from Pudding than she does from me." Surely Law is smart enough not to be deceived by the sweet-little-girl act. "But she and I have... reached an understanding. And I don't intend to cause problems here. I'd like to think that my actions here to date can attest to my intentions." Her tone is firm, but not aggressive; Law is, after all, not wholly unjustified in his concerns. Germa 66 is not a name that instills confidence in anyone but their employers.
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"Hm, fine. Have we reached an understanding, too, then?"
He is willing to accept that she's sincere in her promise not to cause problems... as long as she'll accept that he'll go after her the moment it seems like she's breaking that promise.
He's silent for a moment, then, almost seeming like he might just walk away, but then...
"Were you the one who gave Black Leg-ya the raid suit?"
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But the mention of the raid suit -- now that gets a smile from her. The confirmation that Sanji made it away safely from Whole Cake Island, that the backstop fight that claimed her life was at least successful.
"It was a family decision. But I'll admit to being the one who suggested it. It's his birthright, after all."
(no subject)