middleofsomewhere | Fissures of Time: Ongoing

Fissures of Time: Ongoing

FISSURES OF TIME: ONGOING

... POI 10-12

FOR SOME, THE MISSION HAS BEEN MORE MENTALLY EXHAUSTING THAN PHYSICALLY. Distortions sprout around the domain without rhyme or reason, and the camps must be moved every new day to meet them, as well as stopping a distortion from deciding to form under them from their presence.

While there's bare-bones vegetation, at least they have their own resources to help one another, as well as what can be retrieved from the Ministry base during return trips to take misplaced civilians to safety. It's straight-forward so far...

...but that wouldn't be standard for the Voidtreckers, and some in their ranks don't want straight-forward. Starting during the early hours of Poi 10, there will be occasional rumblings throughout the land. They last for a few seconds and then stop, seemingly for hours; but then they return, and as the days go on, so do the tremors increase.

It seems the distortions too have become affected...

THE UNQUIET CITY. (CW: People unable to die/rising from the dead, body horror)

A city of rubble and ruin stretches far out around them, where once there were hills and vegetation. Much of the rubble is still smoking as fires smoulder. The fighting isn't over, heard before it's seen.

It must be connected to the same skirmishes seen in other distortions, and so most of you are prepared to meet warriors on foot and mount. But what awaits isn't only the horror of bloodshed. No: the reason that the fighting still continues even as the city lies in ruin is because fighters fall and rise again, as if death were nothing but a short rest.

Puncture marks litter skin and armour, holes from weaponry and blessed-magic visible in torsos, even the spaces of where portions of one's skull and brain should be.

Yet they cannot stop fighting. They cannot fall to the ground, rest. Whatever drove them to fight this war still inspires them to continue, screaming as much in pain as in some sort of twisted ecstasy. Perhaps they are too shocked to do anything else. A city locked in eternal war, distorted in time, doomed to repeat itself.

It's hard to set the equalisers here. Not much is stable and fights are likely to break out wherever there are people. The people of this city have their factions, but they will not hesitate to band together to fight intruders.

EYE OF THE STORM.

They might feel this distortion before they enter it. A spine-chilling thrill, the feeling one might get at the edge of a storm.

—For a storm it is. The moment they enter it their vision will be obstructed, winds howl around them and rain lashes down furiously making a swamp of the ground below them. It's freezing cold and as they walk they will feel something in the storm. Almost as if there are icy hands, reaching out to grab at them, to pull them further into the worst of the weather.

It's hard to know where to place the equalisers, hard to see where the edges of this distortion are. Easier, not by much, to move further in, to find the epicentre and try and take it down from there.

It's a treacherous journey, but the centre truly is calm, water frozen like crystals. Yet temperatures are dangerously low, so it's in everyone's best interests to set the equalisers quick and get out.

MEAN AND GREEN. As the rumbling continues, there comes a strange and worrying distortion. Worrying, as this distortion can be seen from the outside. A hazy blur that seems to move across the countryside, along the left side of the camp you're stationed at. It gets dangerously close at times, and when it does...

Green tendrils of plant life burst out, entangling people to pull them into the distortion. Or chains of flowers spread from the distortion out across the countryside. Beautiful and colourful in the otherwise sparse environment, but those flowers work as anchors, spreading the distortion, expanding it.

To get rid of it they will need to enter, and inside is a thick jungle of vines and bright colourful flowers awaiting them. The foliage is thick and the air musky and sweet. It's easy to get separated, and getting lost is only a matter of getting turned around. The leaves are sticky and vines move seemingly on their own, curling around unsuspecting limbs, trying to trap people in this colourful paradise forever.

And up in the sky above, a woman's laughter can be heard, the heat of the sun bearing down that becomes uncomfortable quick. But don't look up - you may find a large yellow eye - yellow iris, yellow pupil, golden yellow everything - peering back at you, and find yourself being pulled in by the very ground itself by a powerful force.

NO SANCTUARY. Protecting the camps hasn't been difficult, despite it being a Purple task. Other than rowdy refugees breaking out into fights, little else has appeared to disturb them.

'Eiiiiliiifii.... Siiiiliiifiii...
Merios? Herios?
Don't hide... don't hide...
Everything will be so perfect soon...'

People are woken abruptly in the early hours of Poi 11. If by some special sense, or by a grab at their throat, by a body falling on top of where they sleep, someone else stopping the refugee who was about to take a knife to them.

The refugees have become uncontrollable, raving about wanting 'their Gods back'. The ground rumbles as the woman's voice from the hazy jungle - ethereal, so divine - speaks from below. Grass rises and the sky above burns with a brightness like an approaching sun.

Setting an equaliser will calm the refugees, but only those in the camps. Starting from lunchtime, more warriors and civilians will be found appearing from the distance and from thin air, seemingly knowing where to find the Voidtreckers' camps - and after some very specific people.

Those with divinity, control over weather, nature, and death will be especially targeted, along with anyone who received blessings from the Gods.

OOC NOTES

OOC post. Ask questions here. Let us know about shenanigans here. NPC requests here, set up a thread here. Rewards go here.

TL;DR: Starting on Poi 10, there will be odd tremors around the domain, and more aggressive time distortions. From Poi 11 refugees will lose control of themselves and start attacking Voidtreckers, in and out of the camp.

It will happen abruptly to begin with, but some keen to reading energy will find that it is shifting; like something is breaking in from somewhere else (similar to the time distortions).

Extra equalisers can be picked up from the Ministry base and they will be there to help, but there are also more distortions happening around the domain, so they'll be dealing with those. The Ministry will advise that any non-combatants should stick to the base, and even use the scouting drones to help from afar, if they really need to help.

Undead warriors can be found outside of time distortions, and not all of the people outside of distortions will be 'permanent' people. Equalisers can be kept going for a few hours to keep these people away, but will also need go into recharge/cooling mode.

Don't worry if you're still busy with the Starting log! Or if you've been meaning to tag, jump in here!

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"Yes," he says, answering the assumption on teaching, while the rest is lost to him partly float-flying, lifting his forelegs off the ground to form a seal with his talons. It's not as easy to get his fifth digits to comply as human thumbs, but he manages nonetheless, and a net of blue qi springs up from the ground and surrounds the few compulsion driven refugees neatly, building higher and then curving inward to meet in a sort of dome over their heads.

"... We could keep throwing people in there, or knocking them out once we've got them trapped like this? As long as we're doing it safely."

Pressure points, no undo strength, and then... having a multitude of unconscious people to watch over.

Jingyi rears back, partly flying (supporting, congratulations all his flight is essentially telekinetic) his chest and forelegs in the air, so his talons and paws can form a seal that's easier on human hands than with dragon claws. The end result is a circle of ground being encased in the sudden existence of thin blue qi 'ropes', woven together into very generous proportions, through which, well, arms could fit, but not even a child's head. It looks like a perfect two person holding cell made out of pure energy, though Jingyi grunts after, and creates an additional seal he sends back down to the tied out man.

That one for silence. Even when his stunned moment passes, he'll be unable to make much more than muffled sounds, lips sealed shut.

(Lans, as it were, had their ways of handling loudness. Jingyi was very familiar with them on both sides of their casting.)

"Like that. I can expand it, or bring it back down, but if we're using it for holding I'd want to set it up once and bring people to it. I don't have a way to carry it around, so it's not quite like dragging a fishing net through the waters."

"Let me just show you," he says, rearing up to catch himself in the air--or at least his chest and forelegs, since he needs his talons to form the seal he knows, and then there's a space before the both of them and away from their passed out refugee-gone-wild where the whole of it is encased in thin blue qi ropes, woven together into a generous sort of net. Arms could reach through, maybe a small leg, certainly feet, but no head, and it could theoretically be made to note allow anyone to reach in either direction, though he wasn't thinking of it in that way. More attempting to keep things in, which reversed the usual way of it, where one could reach out but not in.

Now one could reach in, but find it difficult to reach out.

"I can constrict it down to one person or expand it to hold several at once. I just can't move it around once it's up without letting it disappear first."

He finds Taiki's hands, or at least one, and gives a reassuring squeeze.

Even as he tells him, "Good. Now go. And fly safe, Xiao Ki."

"Mm. 'Cept they're alive, aren't they, if they survive outside the time distortion. And people being here from times they shouldn't, past when they were alive... Shen Qingqiu, how different is that from people who're on the Voidtrecker Express?"

Eyeballing the man acting so nonchalant on his side, benefitting from his greater (and this close, it's more than what the people setting up the equaliser benefit from) heat.

"I'm not running," he says, lowering his head so he's presenting Esteban with the back of it, where his neck joins and his mane is thick and easy to take hold of. "I'm flying. I'll get all three of us over there, we secure the area, we help. So climb on."

Because it made less sense to him to lack someone who was bipedal when he got there than it did to fly ahead, impressive as he'd be, and hope he could gently fend off any attacks and corral anyone he finds while hoping Esteban doesn't get jumped in the process.

In his hold, the young woman remains silent, cradled. He's not as worried about her, and not at all when it comes to carrying her. That, he knows how to do. It's everything else, and solving this compulsion... hm.

That... was a good point, one Idia hadn't considered until now, and maybe not to the same degree Romeo is talking about right now. "... we can get sick from alien bugs?" Oh... that was a scary thought. He had assumed their devices protected them from it much like anything else they ran into. Sure, there was normal infections, but the idea of an unknown alien microorganism causing harm... that was the topic of horror sci-fi movies...

How scary.

Jin Ling will find his work easier in that the refugees were blocked from reaching out to him, only his reach in being allowed; Jingyi kept the one way barrier functional to Jin Ling's favour. He doesn't comment, though his massive head comes down lower and he watches Jin Ling closely, mostly observing his eyes.

He isn't easy with the symbiotic parasitical nature of Jin Rulan's possession, but it's worse when it's evident. He doesn't growl, doesn't let out any verbal sign of that, just lets his whiskers twitch and notes once the current refugees are no longer a danger to themselves or others, quietly collapsed within the qi netting:

"Your wolf is showing."

In just a flash of the eyes, yes, but enough for him to see (and feel, at all times, but that's not relevant).

There's relief in how Romeo handles it all-- it helps the half-elf soothe down the snarl in his thoughts that constantly roars to make sure he's safe. It's hard, Esteban finds, to let himself trust the child to be alright. Not because he doesn't deserve trust, but because he's always been a protective person to begin with, and Romeo is just so young.

It helps to hear his voice. Esteban doesn't reply-- mostly because his own is not the most steady at this point. On top of that, he's had to wake up a fair few Trekkers himself, and explain-- swiftly-- that they were under attack, that the refugees had gone feral, and were pouncing on sight. The strain onto his already squeezed throat does not help, but he tries his best to speak regardless.

It's a small group they gather-- with the Void Trekkers split across a few camps-- three? he thinks?-- there aren't that many here, and only a dozen or so need to be woken. Okay. Okay okay, just fourteen total; Esteban can try to keep them safe, right?

"C'n you guide them t' the supply tent?" He breathes deeply, and has to cough some of the dust out of his lungs before he can keep going. "Y' know where it's at, right?" It's a dangerous position, but Esteban has to keep watch over them all. "Sneaky too, 'f you can!" Please, let them get to a safe place without alerting all of the camp.

Hun. That was not where Esteban's head had turned at the mention of illicit activities, and he has to bury the snicker back behind the bite of his teeth. His grin is still wide, but he doesn't comment, holding back his tongue before his foot got shoved along with it. The light still shedding a warm glow between them and the few stragglers is suddenly very interesting, but he is listening nonetheless.

Ooooh? Seemed that Allen had a bit of a silver tongue, and the ability to trick the unwary. Esteban hadn't expected it; but then he suspected that was exactly why Allen was able to run with it-- there is power in being underestimated. He's a little more dubious at the mention of a bar fight, but then he really doesn't have the room to judge on that particular subject.

"Didja keep the earnings?" Morally, Esteban is mostly on the good side of the spectrum. Mostly.

Opening the case with the equaliser, Wei Wuxian applies himself to setting it. An energy weapon is discharged nearby, and it shoots over his head; he doesn't pause, and doesn't see that it was an accidental shot rather than anything directed on purpose. Next to no one saw him climb into this courtyard, and for once, the choice of Lan Zhan's demeanour holds unpleasant attention more than whatever Wei Wuxian is wearing.

Lan Zhan, faced by persons who couldn't die, and weren't precisely living either, was getting shot at from a distance by discharge weapons, and then rushed by those who held the equivalent to energy swords and spears, some which could discharge their energy in a ghost-like recreation of their form.

Finally, perhaps, a battle oddly worthy of a cultivator of his prestige, though they had more stamina, and always would. As long as the disruption stood firm.

"Ah..." He looked at him sadly. He still smells of blood, of violence. Taiki had just witnessed him doing a truly terrible thing. Yet his heart still aches for him. He shifted, reaching out a hand, to lightly touch Naoya.

"I'm sorry to hear that. It must be difficult, to hold such memories when no one else does."

And to be cursed, it was a terrible thing to be.

"Thank you." A knot of worry rose in him. "Please be careful, Shuǐlóng."

Especially if there were attacks within the camps. He felt terrible about leaving, but there was nothing he could do here except be a burden on his friends.

A gust of wind and there was a kirin beast, standing on very shaky legs.

Jingyi rose, reaching out a hand to offer Taiki his palm, if he were so inclined to nuzzle before leaving.

"You too."

Then he turned, and truly, both of them out of the tents would be gone.

"Then that's what we're going to do. You and me, we'll get to the supply tents. How steady are your legs feeling? Can you run following me? I'm unfairly good at sneaking around when I need to be, and I think we need that kind of gift right now."

Though tough as a call, because his need to help those who need it is so high, he can only take it as they go. Having a plan of action helps, and trust in the abilities of some Trainlings and the Ministry workers.

Right now, it's Madoka who needs his help too, in a real sense.

"We can figure out setting up the equaliser together. I know you've got a good head, I'm sure you'll surprise yourself with how much you remember from when they explained it to us. Much better than this old man, ah?"

"I know. You don't have to like it." They hurl the handless one into another couple, bowling them all over. "If you need to take a break. I can cover for you." A glance over their shoulder, and they add, "We're almost done here, anyway. They're powering up the equalizer now."

Edited (mixing up my threads ugh) 2022-01-31 08:44 (UTC)

Soldat waves the Orange team members on, back to camp, and stops to hover next to Tidus. They hesitate a beat, then put the flesh hand on his back. It's not the same as the fellow-soldier grip from before, but it's meant more gently. "You did good, Tidus."

"There's a method to it, I worked out the right combination of ingredients and spices during a siege back in Beacon," Soldat says, with some censure for her mockery, good-natured on his end as well as hers. But they're proud of their siege stew, dammit. "It's okay. I'll cook plenty for the both of us. I'll always need somebody to do the dishes, after all."

Soldat shakes their head. "I don't sleep on missions. Not unless there's a locked door I can hide behind. It's fine, the lantern means as long as I eat and drink, I don't need sleep." This is... about half true. Being dead does in fact decrease their need for sleep, but they're still gonna crash hard post-mission. They always do.

But because they know Devero wants to help, and needs to keep busy, they offer: "Though if you want to have a look at the wrist servos, I haven't had a chance to do maintenance." Soldat does most of their own maintenance lately, since picking up metal manipulation in fake Diagad, but sometimes they still come to him for fiddly bits.

Even though they should, in fact, be evacuating, Soldat has to pause and stare at the... summoning? The gun-from-the-head? "When the hell did you learn to do that?" they ask. Is that like when Ken has to pretend to shoot himself in the head to do his magic, or something...?

Soldat winces in sympathy. "Mine did. Twice, actually. It. Did not go well." But then, their situation is a bit different from hers. They've changed pretty drastically from the person Steve knew. The second meeting went better, but then it hurt more to have to send him home.

"I do, but you're gonna have to trust me." There wasn't a lot of time to explain, especially if he was beginning to tire out.

"Nyhhh...ain't on-call guys given breaks too..?" How can someone always be on duty, yeesh,

But anyway. Ryo might not see it yet, but he can potentially see Katsuya waving.

And hear him shouting for that matter. "HOIII! Y' AIN'T GONNA LIKE IT...!"

Oh, no.

It sure did attack! And now it...sure is watching. Hey, this person isn't...looking as active as they maybe should. Amar's pretty sure of that anyway. What's going on then? What's happening?

Rolling slightly closer, Amar's sheepy face peers over. It can't be that this guy's sleeping right? No. Noooooo.

...

Yes.

Well that's less than ideal. And Amar frankly can recognize that this isn't the place to sleep. So the wooloo does the best thing any wooloo can think to do!

"MMMMMMEEEEEEEEHHHHH!!!"

Right in his ear. Yeah.

That'll help.

Tidus won't go as Taiki settles, gripping the hand that reaches out. But leaning over the bed isn't any good, so he'll shuffle to one side. He isn't wearing any shoes; not in the mood to clean them, and not about to risk bringing them in when Taiki's already so sensitive.

And he'd answer the question that comes, but he pauses as soon as he's about to begin. Looking over at Inigo, letting him answer instead.

He doesn't want to choose to downplay what happened for Inigo -- it's up to him what's said and what isn't.

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Fissures of Time: Ongoing

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